


a call to motion

by akosmia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Praise Kink, Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, oblivious idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:06:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22926916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akosmia/pseuds/akosmia
Summary: She lingers on his doorway, her eyebrows raised, her lips curved in a sarcastic smile. "It always warms my heart to notice how happy you are to see me"."Your presence is a balm to my very soul," he replies, just as flatly as before.Rey scrunches her nose again, as if even the remote possibility of Ben being happy to see her was that much of an awful image, and Ben – well, he's not exactly offended by that because he doesn't care about Rey (he doesn't) but it doesn't really do wonders for his self-esteem either.Which is why he ends up asking her, quite rudely, "What the hell are you doing here anyway?"-- or: five times Rey initiated physical contact and one time Ben did, and how they went from enemies to lovers.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 344
Kudos: 969





	1. (i)

**Author's Note:**

> hi and welcome to my trash one shot that turned up into my trash multichaptered story! this is going to be sillier than any of my stories but you know what, i needed to write something silly and easy and funny(ish) after december so here it is!
> 
> i have most of this already written, so expect weekly updates!!

Fighting with his mother, he has learned in almost thirty years of fucking up and having to apologize for said fucking up, is a messy business.

Everything involving his family is, of course, but after dealing with this for most of his life, he's come to the conclusion that Leia Organa screaming at him really takes the cake. It's at times like this that he truly understands where he got his awful temper from and realizes the true scope of his family's legacy. 

"I told you," he tries to say, between one round of furiously shouting from her and the other, before she can start calling him names and tell him how much she suffered to birth him into this world and he should show at least some fucking _gratitude_ for that, every now and then. "I _am_ sorry". 

Despite the fact that he has spent his whole life being sorry, it's clear from the way she inhales on the other side of the phone that he never actually learned how to properly apologize and he suddenly understands how his father always manages to put his foot in his mouth when it comes to his mother. 

He does think he's doing much better now. 

" _You're sorry_? That's all you have to say?" she asks, sounding somehow outraged. He can almost imagine the furious expression on her face and a shiver passes through him, despite being a few cities and many miles away from her right now. One could look at Leia Organa and find it ridiculous to be scared of her five-foot-one, petite frame – and then he'd end up experiencing first-hand the wrath of a God. "You promised you would be there. It's your father's _birthday_ and you know it was important for your whole relationship, but I guess you just don't care about him or us or anyone". 

His conditioned response is to flare up – the muscles in his body go tense and he sees red for a minute, but he's not an angry teen anymore and he's supposed to know how to deal with this without losing his temper. Allegedly. 

He supposes that's what therapy is for. 

"You know it's not that," he says, in the most patient tone he manages to muster right now. It takes every little ounce of self-control not to scream (because, apparently, that's how they communicate in this family, which, in retrospective, is probably the reason why he's in therapy in the first place) and he wonders if his mother appreciates it or if she's just too angry to notice the progress he's making with his therapist. "I wanted to be there, you know it. I– I know I've been awful to you. To both of you. But I care about you, I care about you so much, mom. I'm trying, really– it's just… Snoke–" 

He stops when he hears his mother's sharp intake of breath and for the countless time during this conversation he curses the Solo genes that grant him the remarkable ability to always say the wrong thing at the wrong time. 

"You're letting that awful man dictate your life, now?" she asks him, and her voice has almost a disappointed quality about it, beneath all the anger he can still sense. Which is not exactly new – apparently, his mother's standard reaction to his entire existence is some form of disappointment. He should be used to it, by now, but somehow it always stings a little bit. 

Or, more than a little bit. 

He sighs, throwing his head back. He's definitely not ready for this conversation, but apparently life doesn't care about that and his existence is a joke anyway. 

"I'm not".

" _You are_ ," she continues, as if she hadn't heard him at all, which sounds remarkably like the story of his life. "He's already controlling your work and turning you into his slave and now you're letting him tell you when you can come _home_?" 

His left eye twitches. His jaw clenches. His fingers come to pinch the bridge of his nose, trying to fight off the headache he can feel mounting in his temples just by talking to his mother.

That's the _Solo effect_ at work, he muses – something Poe has come up with over the years to describe the feeling of being done with Ben in the span of a few minutes of being exposed to his presence. Ben supposes it applies to the rest of his family, too. 

"It's just a weekend," he hears himself say, through gritted teeth. 

The fact that he's not shouting his words is a testament to how good his therapist actually is and how hard he's actually working on his issues, but it goes wasted on his mother, who is definitely too caught up in her anger to fully appreciate it. Again, kind of the story of his life. 

"Just a _weekend–_ " 

He tries to reason with her, even if he knows all too well it's pointless when she's like this. 

"If I bail out of work this weekend, he–" He doesn't know how to explain it to his mother – where to even begin to talk about Snoke, the cruelty in the back of his eyes, the way he always manages to threaten him without saying anything at all, so he takes a deep breath and steels himself, swallowing his words down. "I'll come home next time, I promise, mom. I'm sorry but I can't– I'll make it up to you both, I swear". 

There's a disappointed silence on the other side of the phone that makes his heart clench, and for a moment he thinks his mother has hung up on him – but of course she wouldn't, not without gifting him a last, devastating blow, because that's just how they function, apparently. 

"I just hope one day you'll manage to care about something else beside your work," she says, so quietly he could have almost missed it. She doesn't leave him time to argue about it, though, because she hangs up after a whispered, "Goodnight, Ben", and he's left staring at his phone as if it could grant him answers. 

He takes a deep breath, then another – then, another two or three for good measure, because he feels his hands shake and his shoulders tremble and his breath starting to come in ragged bursts. 

A faint noise of footsteps comes in through the door he's left ajar, but he barely pays it any attention – it's probably just Poe coming back from work and Ben thinks Poe knows him well enough to stay away from his room even on good days, so he doesn't have to worry about it, at least. 

His mother's words echo in his mind and he knows he should just try to calm himself down, count to ten, take a deep breath or whatever normal people do when they try to calm down – but therapy only gets him so far and he's _tired_ , so the only logical thing his brain manages to come up with is letting out a frustrated groan and throwing his phone as far away from him as he can (which is, coincidentally, right outside his room), which, retrospectively, is not really what a well-adjusted adult would do. 

Instead of the dull noise of the phone hitting the floor, though, he's met with a high pitched scream that doesn't sound like Poe at all, followed by a pained groan and a loud exhale. 

Then, the door of his room slams open and a familiar face pokes in. 

"Hey!" Rey exclaims, one hand clutching her arm, the other holding the phone he's just thrown away. Her eyebrows are knit together and her lips are twisted in the grimace she always seems to wear when he's around, but somehow she looks even angrier today, which is always both a challenge and an accomplishment from his part. "Is it Chandrila's custom greeting, throwing cellphones at people? Because I have to tell you, that's not how we do it here in Coruscant". 

He opens his mouth, then closes it, his eyes fixed on Rey, who's currently standing in his doorway and looking at him as if hoping he'd drop dead under her gaze. Not really a novelty, since she's been staring at him like this for like, eight months now, but still – kind of unsettling, too. Ben has the distinct idea that, given the chance, she'd kill him herself, which doesn't make him exactly keen on having her around. 

"Oh," he manages to say, in the end. His voice comes out weirdly flat, and he lets out a deflated sigh, as if all the fight had gone out of him. That's what dealing with his mother does to him, he supposes, and he's barely got any energy left to bicker with Rey. "It's you". 

He says it as if he had just swallowed a very bitter feeling, and Rey wrinkles her nose at his tone, as if he had somehow managed to offend her even more - which, given his talents, is probably not far from the truth. 

Not that he cares about that – not that they've ever cared about that at all. After all, they've spent the past eight months trying to out-annoy each other, much to Poe's exasperation, and Ben doesn't think it will ever come a time in which Rey will care about his feelings or his words. 

And still, she lingers on his doorway, her eyebrows raised, her lips curved in a sarcastic smile. "It always warms my heart to notice how happy you are to see me". 

He snorts, shaking his head. It would be just his luck, obviously – to have her around right after a fight with his mother, just because his existence wasn't enough of a joke. 

"Your presence is a balm to my very soul," he replies, just as flatly as before. 

Rey scrunches her nose again, as if even the remote possibility of Ben being happy to see her was that much of an awful image, and Ben – well, he's not exactly offended by that because he doesn't care about Rey ( _he doesn't_ ) but it doesn't really do wonders for his self-esteem either.

Which is why he ends up asking her, quite rudely, "What the hell are you doing here anyway?" 

She drops his phone on his drawer, then leans against his doorway, her arms crossed on her chest, and though she's never been here in his room – she spends most of her time in his and Poe's apartment with Finn and Poe in the living room or in the kitchen, after all – she looks weirdly at ease, as if she had always belonged here somehow. 

Which is insane, because Ben barely tolerates his own presence in his room, let alone someone else's – but the way she casually rests against the wall, the easy sarcastic smile on her face, the glance that she reserves him that's equal parts annoyed, teasing and utterly done with him… it almost feels like _home_. 

He shakes his head, trying to erase the thought from his mind. 

She's still looking at him like that, when she replies. 

"Don't worry that pretty brain of yours, I'm not here to see you," she tells him, as if they lived in a universe in which he could come up with such a notion in the first place. "I've swung by to grab a book I lent Poe. He thought you were out of the city for the weekend, so he told me about the key beneath the doormat. I wasn't– I didn't want to intrude, I just thought you were away". 

The reminder of what he should be doing right now – be on his way to Chandrila, with an awful case of headache and his heart both eager and terrified at the thought of seeing his parents again, because that's how it always is – is a blow to his already aggravated mind and he's definitely not proud of it but he _crumbles_ , taking his head into his hands and letting out a pained groan that almost, but not quite, masks the sob he's trying to keep inside. 

He almost doesn't worry about the sorry scene he must be painting for Rey right now – but, he thinks, she will never let him live this down, won't she? She'll always be there to remind him of that time he ended up crying in his room in front of her for no apparent reason. 

He's waiting for a witty remark or a chuckle laced with derision, but instead, he's met with the sound of tentative footsteps against the hardwood floor of his room and then Rey comes into his vision as she kneels in front of him to look him in the eyes. 

He doesn't understand it. 

_What the fuck is happening today?_

He gets just a glimpse of her, his vision obscured by his own fingers, but he can see a frown on her face, and she looks almost… _worried_. It's an expression he never saw on her face, and it only makes him feel worse because if Rey, who has seen him at his worst, is thinking he has definitely lost it, then it must be really bad. 

"Hey," she says, in the end. For the first time in eight months, her voice is not colored by annoyance or sarcasm or rage. It sounds almost hesitant, an adjective he would have never associated with Rey. "Are you alright?"

A hysterical laughter threatens to escape his lips, but he manages to keep it in check, because he doesn't need that too, now. "Sure. I'm great. Peachy." His voice cracks and he pretends to clear his throat. "Never been better". 

At this point, he expects Rey to get up, tell him something sarcastic he isn't in the right state of mind to think of, and bolt out of his room, leaving him and his weirdly timed existential crisis for good, which is what any sane person would do if faced with the same situation 

Instead, she lets out a deep sigh, but stays planted there, knelt on the floor of his room as if to take a better look at him. 

"You know that just because we can't stand each other, it doesn't mean that I don't understand when you're lying, right?" she asks him. 

She doesn't sound quite as annoyed with him as she usually does, which is new, but at least he's familiar with her tone right now, and it feels easier to thread on a known path. 

Before he gets the chance to say anything, though, she is sighing again and the next few words take him by surprise. "Ben, what happened?" 

She's never called him _Ben_ – he wasn't even sure she actually _knew_ his name. She's always used a variety of insults he's always been a little bit impressed by, or, if she felt particularly peaceful that day and she wanted to make Poe's life easier by not insulting his roommate, she called him by his last name. 

His instinctive reaction is to flare up, as he always does. He pulls his hands away from his face and stares at her with what he hopes is a hard glare - – but he doesn't know how well he manages that, since it's pretty obvious that he's trying his best not to burst out in tears. 

"Why do you even care?" he almost spats out, and the intensity of it makes him flinch – there it is again, the rage he thought he was getting better at dealing with. 

What a pathetic case he must be. A man of almost thirty years of age, flaring up like a teenager. 

Then, because Rey doesn't seem impressed by his display of anger and she just stares at him blankly, he deflates again, as if defeated, the anger fading as quickly as it had appeared, leaving him even more exhausted.

He lets out a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. "You hate me, anyway". 

She makes a soft noise, and there's a shadow on her face that almost resembles a smile, but Ben knows that this can't be the case. 

"Well, you don't exactly make it easy to like you in the first place," she says, which is true, but there's no animosity in her tone this time, which is weird and new and he doesn't know how to react to that. "And besides, you might be an asshole, but you look upset and– I don't know, it's not right, isn't it? Only _I_ get to upset you". 

He almost laughs at that. 

"And anyway, you're kind of an overdramatic idiot," she adds, to which he really can't say anything, because she's definitely right. It feels wrong to agree with her, but he'll take it at this point. "But even you don't usually throw your phone at unsuspecting passersby". 

At this, he can't help but cringe, the urge to disappear from civilization gripping him out of the blue. He wishes the ground beneath his feet would suddenly swallow him whole, but of course – there's no perfect timed abyss in which to throw yourself into appearing out of nowhere when you most need it. 

"Look, I'm sorry," he says, before he can realize what he's actually saying.

Rey's eyebrows arch up and she looks surprised for a split of a second, her eyes big and full of shock – because they've never apologized to each other before. They barely manage to call truce whenever Poe gets too annoyed with both of them and threatens to kick them out, to which Ben always replies that he can't kick his roommate out. This always seems to enrage Poe even further. 

"I know that we're not exactly on best terms, but–" He cringes again, wondering why he's even talking in the first place and making a fool out of himself. It must be a hard habit to get rid of. "I didn't throw my phone at you. I didn't know you were there, I swear, I just– I didnt– I didn't want to hurt you". 

Apparently, Rey has decided to surprise him today, because she tilts her head to the side and her lips curve in a _smile_. It's not taunting or sarcastic or cruel – it's a real smile, small and hesitant but still a real one and it comes as a shock to him, the fact that it's so brilliant and pure and _beautiful_. 

He'd never seen her smile like that before. 

"I know," she says, quietly. It makes no sense in Ben's mind, but then she looks at him _like that_ , and he forgets how to protest. "So, what happened?" 

He doesn't know what it is, that makes him crumble – maybe it's the fact that he's had a long day and he's tired of fighting, or maybe it's the way she's looking at him right now, as if she was genuinely worried about him. He's not sure he wants to know in the first place. 

What he knows, though, is that he sighs and gives in. 

"It's just… my mother," he says, as if it was an explanation. "I–I kinda have a really tense relationship with my family and sometimes it gets so overwhelming and–" He shrugs and gestures wildly, as if to indicate this whole situation. "It gets pretty fucked up". 

He expects Rey to yell at him and leave him for good. He doesn't know a lot about her – only that her biggest interest in this life is to torment him and that her smug grin is somehow the brightest thing he has ever seen – but he has picked up a few clues over the past few months and he knows that her home life has been nothing if not dysfunctional at best. He's not actually sure about the extent of it, but he's pretty sure she's two seconds away from smashing his face right now and reminding him that he had it better than most people so he should just stop whining like the child he is and deal with it. 

Instead, she apparently likes to surprise him today – it feels like she rips the ground right off his feet every time he begins to feel steady on it, but she does it so effortlessly and beautifully that he barely remembers how to protest. 

She gets up from the floor only to flop on the bed next to him, sitting way closer than they've ever been in these months. And then, she does the most incredible thing. 

She touches him. 

Her hand curves around his knee, her fingers delicate and hesitant as if she wanted to give him the possibility of an out, and Ben's entire body seems to react – his heart stops for a moment, then starts to race into his ribcage, thundering against his bones, and his muscles tense, and his skin feels electrical even if Rey's hand is currently splayed on his jeans and she's not really touching _him_. 

Her eyes are fixed on his face, as if she wanted to assure herself that this is okay. 

When he doesn't pull away or insult her (which he's definitely not capable of, at the moment, since all his functioning brain cells are currently focused on the way her hand _feels_ on his knee and how tiny it looks, compared to his thigh and his thoughts are going down a dangerous path he doesn't want to explore because he can't, not with her when it's clear she hates him and it's not like he _wants to_ anyway–), she tilts her head again and a small, gentle smile takes hold of her lips. 

"Want to talk about it?" 

It should be crazy – they've hated each other ever since they've met months and months ago, and they've fought their way out of every casual encounter in the kitchen of the apartment Ben shares with Poe, and even if she's always _there_ somehow (because Finn, her best friend, is Poe's boyfriend and Ben's life has become a living nightmare ever since), they've silently agreed to stay clear out of each other's way in order to avoid another shouting match.

Long story short: Ben thinks Rey would pay to kill him, and she surely wouldn't be comforting him right now if not for the chance to mock him afterwards. He definitely shouldn't trust her. 

And instead, he does. 

He sighs. "I know it's hard to believe it now, but I wasn't a well-adjusted kid," he says, almost wishing to elicit a mocking laughter from her. Instead, she listens to him intently, her gaze fixed on him, her hand lingering on his knee, so he keeps talking, because he has to. "I was always angry and anxious and I used to lash out a lot and my parents– they're great people and I know they loved me and tried their best, but they weren't around much when I was a kid and– I had to deal with it on my own, you know?" 

Unexpectedly, Rey nods. Her grip on his knee tightens, as if she wanted to comfort him somehow, and he doesn't have it in himself to ask himself what it means. 

"So I grew resentful and I– I was awful to them. I regret it now and I'm trying to get better, you know, we're all trying to get better. Build the whole relationship again and try to communicate in a healthy matter and be there for each other and whatever they tell you in therapy." He shrugs. "It's just… not easy". 

"But you're trying," she says, so quietly he could have almost imagined it. 

He's taken aback by her, by this stranger sitting on his bed, who flashes him hesitant smiles and looks at him like that. She's so different from the Rey he's used to – the one who always schools her face into an aggravated frown whenever he's around and throws insults at his general direction when he manages to put his foot in his mouth and say the wrong thing again. He didn't think Rey was capable of being quiet and gentle – but of course, she is. She wouldn't be friends with Poe otherwise. 

She flashes him a brief smile, as if to reassure him, which is the oddest thought. "You're all trying. Isn't that what matters, in the end?" 

He lets out a deep breath. His body feels weirdly tense, not from anger this time but from something else – as if some sort of electrical energy was buzzing just underneath his skin, starting from the place where her hand touches his thigh.

He gulps. 

"I suppose," he says, shrugging and looking away from the hand currently resting on his knee. "It's just… difficult to balance it all. I try my best and they do too, but… as my therapist puts it, we've fallen in these dysfunctional patterns over the years and it takes a lot to be conscious of them and avoid them." He shakes his head. "I just think we're a bunch of impulsive assholes. Plus, my mother always manages to push my buttons and, well, she hates my boss, so…" 

"You work for the First Order, right?" Rey asks him, her eyes lingering on him. Up close, he realizes her irises are not green nor brown but a warm shade of hazel that he feels almost captivated by. 

He tries not to show his surprise at her words. "Yeah," he nods, wondering how much Rey knows about him, when he knows almost nothing about her. "I know they're evil, you don't need to tell me that. But Snoke…" 

He almost shudders at the thought of his boss, his cruel eyes, the smile that makes his inside freeze in terror, the way his words seem to haunt him even after he's gone. Rey seems to pick up his thoughts, because her grip on his knee tightens, her fingers digging into his bones and the weirdest thing is – it's not _unpleasant_. 

He'd die before admitting it but – it feels _nice_. Even if it's Rey and normally he wouldn't get so close to her if not held at gunpoint. 

Especially because she always looks like she's two hard stares away from killing him and she has seemed horrified by him ever since the night they met. He doesn't blame her – he'd be horrified by himself too – but still, it doesn't exactly make him feel better. 

He shakes his head, trying to erase that thought. 

"Snoke…. he's _awful_. I don't know how he does it, but he always manages to threaten to ruin my career if I try to quit, but he does it without actually saying anything at all and I don't know how to tell my parents this," he breathes out, his words almost slurred together by the sudden urge he feels to let Rey _know_. It's the first time he says it out loud and he briefly wonders if she's actually listening, if she'll believe him. "I don't know if they'd even _believe_ me. It sounds crazy even to my own ears, they wouldn't–"

"Of course they would," Rey instantly replies, her voice colored by shock this time. It doesn't bring any satisfaction, the fact that he has finally managed to surprise her. "I mean, I'm not exactly the world's leading expert on parents and I understand things have been difficult, but… they're your _parents_. They're still trying to get better for you, despite it all, so they care about you. If they love you, they'll believe you. It's, like, their job". 

It comes to him as a surprise, the fact that it should be as easy as Rey puts it. His parents love him – they've got a weird way to show it and they definitely don't know how to communicate as a family and they definitely should work on that, but he knows they love him. They must, to stay and try to reach him anyway, after all he has put them through. They're _trying_ – Ben knows they are, despite how difficult he's been, and it must mean _something_. 

"Don't let that piece of shit of your boss poison your relationship with them. I'm pretty sure that's what he wants, so he can twist you however he likes," she adds. How she manages to understand the inner workings of his brain is truly a mystery, but she does and Ben lets her for once – he lets someone in, instead of pushing them away. "You can do better than that. Hell, you _deserve_ better than that". 

He swallows down all the questions he can feel swirl in his brain and surge on his lips because he just doesn't _understand_. 

"I thought you said I was an asshole," he tries to say, going for a teasing smile that has no bite to it, and Rey–

– Rey _smiles_. It's not the small, hesitant smile from before, but a true one and it's even brighter, even more beautiful and it takes his breath away, leaves him astonished. It's not he hasn't noticed before (he has, he very much has), but it still takes him by surprise, to realize how lovely she actually is when she's not scowling at him.

The thought burrows somewhere in his mind, and doesn't leave. 

"You are," she confirms, easily, and he's so surprised and enthralled by her that he doesn't have it in him to be offended, which is so uncharacteristic of him since it's _Rey_ and they've spent the last eight months arguing about the smallest things, even if pineapple goes on pizza (it doesn't). "But– look, we might hate each other, but you look really upset and… I just don't like it, alright?" 

Her hand falls away from his thigh. It looks like she's trying her best to shrink into her shoulders, and she pointedly looks away from him, staring at the hardwood floor of his room as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. For a moment, he wonders if she's blushing – but it's probably just a trick of the light.

He blinks her in. "You're sure I haven't hit you on the head with my phone, right?" 

The snort she lets out is undignified but strangely pleasant. He doesn't linger on it. 

"Don't worry, I still hate you," she reassures him, bringing her eyes on him again. Her lips are curved into a smile that's not quite as bright as before, but it's not even the usual stuff smirk she reserves for him when he's making her mad. "But I've seen the way you act around Poe and you're so _different_. You actually _smile_ with him, like a real smile, not the emotional constipated thing you usually put on, and– I know you can be a normal person when you put your mind to it, even if not with me. So, yeah. I think you do deserve better". 

He's astonished. It's the most he's heard Rey talk without her shouting at him and her _words_ – God, her words make him want to cry, because he's been nothing if not awful to her too, and instead of telling him to go fuck himself, she tells him he _deserves better_. 

There's a thundering noise coming from his heart that he's sure she can hear too. 

He clears his throat before it becomes clear that he's trying his best not to sob pathetically. 

"I–" he tries to say, then shakes his head. Her hand rests on his bed, so close to his that his little finger almost brushes against hers, and she keeps looking at him _like that_ and he doesn't know what to say or how words work in the first place. "I'm sorry for the way I act with you. All these months– God, I've been _horrible_ ". 

"Well, I haven't been pleasant either," she says, with a shrug, as if months and months of insults and screams could be ignored like that. "We both have quite a temper, I guess". 

That's an understatement – he does have anger issues that he can't seem able to solve despite all his efforts, but Rey stares at him and there's a small, hopeful smile on her lips, and he can't find it in himself to contradict her, not today. 

He takes a deep breath before talking, his eyes flickering between her hand splayed on the comforter and her face.

"Thank you," he manages to say, in the end, which feels so small compared to the amount of gratitude he feels right now, right into his bones. 

It's weird, feeling this for Rey, but he doesn't mind it. 

She snorts again, but even this time there's no cruelty behind it. 

"I can't believe you're actually _thanking me_ , I should record this for future use," she says, arching up her eyebrows, and she looks so different from the Rey he's familiar with – always angry, always scowling, always looking at him as if wishing him dead – that he's taken aback. She briefly pats his knee, before letting him go, and he feels her absence as a physical sensation that surprises him. "I'll go retrieve the book I was looking for and I'll leave you alone. You're probably fed up with me". 

It surprises him he actually isn't. 

Before he can understand how to tell her that, she raises from his bed and walks toward the door, giving him one last lingering look. "Just…. take care of yourself, alright?" 

He nods. "Yeah," he replies, his voice strangely raw, as if he had spent the better part of the hour screaming. "Otherwise who would annoy you?" 

He feels her hand on his knee and her eyes on him for a long time even after she's left.


	2. (ii)

He's gloomily sitting in a booth in the quietest – well, what passes for the quietest in this hellplace – corner of the club, nursing his half-empty bottle of beer and what feels like the beginning of an headache, when Rey slides in the seat right in front of him, holding one of those colorful cocktails Poe seems so fond of and looking like she just stepped off the dance floor, which is probably what she did. 

Not that he _knows_. Not that he has spent the last ten minutes intently looking at the dance floor in the forlorn hope of catching a brief glimpse of her as she smoothly swayed to the music. 

Not that he _managed_. 

It doesn't matter. He shouldn't even _think_ about it. 

She takes a sip of her drink and stares at him, a glint of _something_ he can't quite catch in the back of her eyes. "You look miserable". 

He fights off the exasperated laughter that seems to bubble in his chest more and more often lately when it comes to Rey, which is new and weird and unsettling, and leaves a weird aftertaste in his mouth. 

"And you are way too happy about it." His eyebrows arch up out of their own accord. "And I'm not miserable. I know it can be hard to tell, but this is just my face. Sadly, that's the best it can do," he adds, with a self-deprecating smile, as if to prove her that this is just how his face works. Which is to say, it doesn't. 

She's probably aware of that, anyway. 

Rey snorts. Her face is flushed from all the dancing she's done and she looks weirdly vibrant and alive, as if she came in screaming colors while the rest of the world remained in black and white. He finds himself captivated by this sight – as it often happens, lately, even if he tries to tell himself it's nothing. 

It _is_ nothing. He just likes to be able to look at her without having to fear for his life, that's all. 

"No, shut up about that, your face is _fine_ ," she tells him, shaking her head as if he had just told her something terribly stupid. He's left gaping at her for a second, because _fine_ is definitely not how he'd describe his face, but maybe her cocktail is momentarily clouding up her judgment and she's blurting out things she doesn't really mean. "And, by the way, your standard expression actually looks like you're perpetually emotionally stunted. This face–" She points right at him. "This is just miserable". 

He knows he shouldn't be surprised by Rey's ability to surprise him, and yet – he can't help but stare at her for a few seconds, marveling at the fact that she took her time to memorize his expressions and catalogue them. How exactly she's managed that since they've been screaming at each other for almost a year and they've started to tolerate each other's presence for barely a few months, he doesn't actually know, but he knows he should make peace with the fact that somehow Rey always has some aces up her sleeve when it comes to him. 

He sighs, in the end, because apparently he hasn't been able to hide anything from her since the day she found him crying in his room, which alarms him but not as much as it should. It feels – almost _nice_ , in a scary way. As if she's starting to _know_ him. As if he's _letting_ her. 

He tries to erase that thought from his mind. It's all he seems to be doing lately – his thoughts seem to slip on Rey more often than he'd like them to, much to his annoyance, and he has to try his best to pretend this isn't _affecting_ him somehow.

It's _annoying_ , having to think about someone he can't stand. 

"Well, does _this_ –" He gestures wildly, as if to encompass this whole loud, messy club he'd like to burn to the ground right now. "–look like my natural habitat to you?"

Her lips curve into a teasing smile, but there's no cruelty in her words or in her expression, and it always takes him by surprise, the fact that things have _changed_ ever since that moment in his bedroom and lately they've been able to talk without actually shouting at each other.

Most of the time, at least. 

"Then why the hell did you agree to this night out, if you knew you'd look like someone standing for execution?" 

He takes his time to find an answer and takes a sip of his beer, hoping the alcohol can somehow enlighten him. 

"I don't know," he says, in the end, shrugging, his eyes landing on his own hands. "Poe had insisted and- well, I've been so rude to Finn and Rose and Jannah and, well, you of course… I wanted to redeem myself, I guess." 

He doesn't mention the fact that the idea of getting a glimpse of her had tipped off the balance anyway because he doesn't understand it in the first place and he's not sure he's ready to be teased about it. Or worse, to see Rey's disgusted expression at the thought that he'd want to _see_ _her_. Not that he actually _wanted_ _to_ – he just finds her the most tolerable one among Poe's friends and her presence is almost soothing and comforting, in that annoying way of hers. At least he doesn't have to pretend to smile and act like a normal human being with her. 

"I didn't know it involved _dancing_ ," he finishes, before he can say something stupid. 

A laughter escapes her lips and it feels almost life-changing – he wishes they were somewhere else, somewhere quieter where he could actually hear her laugh, study it, memorize it so he could play it on repeat. Instead, he has to settle for _watching_ her laugh – her shoulders shake and she throws her head back and her face _lights up_ and he kind of loses his train of thoughts for a while. 

He realizes now he'd never seen her laugh before and it feels like a terrible loss. 

"Why," she starts, when she manages to speak, her breath somehow still labored. "Why do you say _dancing_ as if you were saying _death by guillotine_?" 

His cheeks heat up out of their own accord, but he tries to play it off and pretend it's just from the alcohol. He tries to school his face into a neutral expression and stares at the bottle of beer in front of him, but the thing is – he can still imagine the faint echo of her laughter, can still see the way her eyes crinkled around the corners, the way her lips curved, that brightness about her that never seems to leave her and… He can't focus on anything else. 

"Because that's what it _feels like_ ," he manages to say, wrinkling his nose. "When my mother made me take dancing lessons when I was a kid she surely hadn't _this_ in mind". 

His words are met with an astonished silence and for a moment he thinks Rey has just left him there – but of course, she hasn't, because she's always around when it comes to torment him with her presence, even if he can't understand it. When he raises his eyes, she's looking at him with a giant, teasing smile on her face and she looks just like a kid on Christmas Day.

 _Oh, fuck_. 

He realizes just now he has given her enough material to let her taunt him for a whole year and a pained groan slips past his lips. Of course – she doesn't really like him, she never has and he's stupidly allowed himself to forget it, between one radiant smile and the other. It's not like he _likes_ her, he tries to reason with himself. He barely tolerates her on good days and she's probably the last person on this planet he'd ever talk to – but for one shining moment he'd seen her laugh and he'd thought–

It doesn't matter. She's just there to tease him and torment him, he tells himself, and even if they're not actively trying to kill each other anymore, it doesn't mean she's actually his _friend_.

He doesn't even have _friends_. He's just got Poe, he guesses. 

And – it's not like he _wants_ Rey to be his friend, anyway. 

"What?" he asks, annoyed by the way her eyes glitter with mischief. He feels weirdly stupid, as if he had trusted her when he shouldn't have, and it's not like he's _hurt_ , because he doesn't care about her at all, but something in him feels off all the same, like a wrong note in a familiar melody. 

She doesn't seem to mind his annoyance – not that she ever has – and a delighted expression takes hold of her face. "Your mother made you take _what_?" 

He sighs, taking another sip of his beer before talking, because if he has to do this, he wants at least to be a little bit buzzed. He knows that half a bottle of beer is definitely not enough for that – he's way too tall and broad to get drunk with it – but he can surely try his best. 

"Dancing lessons, yes. I'm sure you will find it very funny," he says, scrunching his nose again. 

She doesn't stop looking so _happy_ about it and she almost glows, even in the dim lights of the club and – it's stupid, but somehow she captivates him and he feels a lump in his throat he's never felt before. Her colorful cocktail rests forgotten on the table and she stares at him with an expression that's equal parts disbelief and awe, and he hates himself, but he can't tear his eyes away from her, no matter how hard he tries, despite how embarrassed he is. 

"So…" she starts, eyes fixed on him as if he were the most entrancing thing this world had to offer. "You know how to _dance_ ". 

He doesn't understand where this is going, but at this point, he's not sure he cares. "Not to _this_ ," he replies with distaste clearly audible in his voice, gesturing again to the whole club, its deafening music, the mass of people screaming and moving like they're being attacked. "This isn't _dancing,_ this is merely moving like a pack of wild animals. I know how to dance _properly_ ". 

Rey brings her hands to her mouth, as if her delight was something impossible to contain. "Oh my God, _Ben_ ," she says, uttering his name as if it meant something. "You can't just say things like that, I– Can you show me?" 

Her ability to surprise him strikes again, because he just _looks_ at her and doesn't know what to say to that. Is she mocking him? Is she trying to mess with him? Why does it always feel like she's two steps ahead of him, and he's always left there, staring at her and trying to understand her? 

(He shouldn't like it so much, should he?) 

" _What_?" he manages to ask, his eyebrows knit together. Rey just stares expectantly at him, which doesn't make any sense at all, but that's just how his life works nowadays, apparently. "Well, definitely not _here_ ". 

The conversation should end here, like most of his conversations with Rey end – abruptly and with her storming off because he said the wrong thing again. He almost expects her to stand up and leave him for good, because he doesn't understand why she's come to talk with him in the first place and he almost misses (but not really) the simpler times in which they just hated each other and Rey just screamed at him. 

Instead, Rey flips his words upside down again. 

She _takes his hand_. 

Her fingers slide between his with no hesitation and she tugs at him, as if trying to get him to move – but honestly, he's too astonished by the fact that she's touching him to register anything else. The world could collapse right now and he'd just think about the fact that she's _holding his hand_.

"Come on, let's go," she tells him, and without knowing why, he follows her – he gets up, their drinks forgotten, and lets her guide him through the club without uttering a protest or complaining about the noise or the people or anything else, and the only thing he manages to think about is how nice her hand feels into his own, how perfectly her fingers fit between his, how electric the touch of her skin is, when she presses it right against his. 

He can't breathe like this but – at the same time, it feels like the only right thing in the world. 

Before he realizes, they're walking out the backdoor of the club, right into the parking lot. The world is suddenly a lot brighter and quieter and when he looks at Rey, she comes in sharp focus – luminous eyes, flushed cheeks, a halo of chestnut hair around her face. There's something _vibrant_ about Rey, as if the world around her dulled in comparison. 

She still hasn't let go of him. 

"So?" she asks, raising her eyebrows.

" _What_?" 

When it's clear that he isn't following her train of thought, she sighs, but there's a smile on her lips, and he doesn't understand it at all. It makes him _reel_ – it always feels like Rey is a book written in a foreign language he doesn't know how to master, but oh, how he likes it. 

She brings him back to earth by letting out an exasperated sigh that sounds almost a little bit fond, in this empty parking lot. "Can you show me? Your dancing?"

He doesn't even question it anymore – this might as well happen at this point in his life. It feels like Rey always knows how to surprise him and he shouldn't like it as much, but somehow he does and he knows it will eventually be his undoing, because trusting her is a bad idea and letting her close is even worse, and yet. He can't stop himself. 

"Is this an elaborate plan to get close enough to me to actually kill me?" he asks her, raising his eyebrows, and she laughs again. 

This time, away from the club and its awful noises, he can actually hear it – it's a silvery sound, as bright as her smile, and it suits her so much it almost feels like he's already heard it before, in some other life. But of course he hasn't – and it takes him by surprise, to discover how much he likes it. He wonders if he can make her laugh again. If he can make her _happy_. 

It's a dangerous thought to linger on.

"What fun would that be?" she replies, as she steps a little bit closer. Her hand still hasn't let go of his and he feels weirdly present, as if everything in time and space was happening _right_ _now_. "I prefer you alive. Otherwise I don't get to tease you". 

His legs decide to move out of their own accord and he finds himself closer to her than he had anticipated, as she tugs at his hand to bring him in front of her. "You're having way too much fun with this, aren't you?" 

She tilts her head to the side and he sucks in a breath because – because he's actually close enough to notice the pattern of freckles on the bridge of her nose, which he hadn't really paid attention to before. Now he can't stop looking at it. 

"What gave it away?" she asks him, and then, because he doesn't seem capable of moving at all, she catches his arm and brings it around her waist with an exasperated sigh. "Come on, surprise me".

They're so close he can feel her giggle resound in his chest when he pretends to sigh in annoyance. Then, bracing himself for it, he starts moving. 

His legs seem to remember the steps from his childhood – years and years of lessons kicking in, a muscle memory he thought long gone by now, but that somehow has survived the mark of the years, and it's way easier than he'd thought, even like this. 

It's... well, _weird_ . He's ballroom dancing in the parking lot of a club without any music to dance to and Rey's right into his arms, pliant and all too happy to play along with it (which makes no sense because just two months ago they were fighting over the last slice of pizza and now they're _here_ and she looks almost _happy_ in his embrace), and he has no idea how his life has come to this. Her eyes are fixed on her feet and it's clear that she isn't as trained as he is because her steps are unsure and the hand currently resting on his shoulder almost fists at his shirt. 

And still, it's the most surreal and astonishing experience of his whole life. 

"You're actually good at it," she comments, after a few seconds, raising her gaze to look at him. There's a pout on her lips and up close her eyes look even brighter. He has to look away from her, blinded by the sight. "I thought I could torment you about it for the next few weeks, but you're _good_ ". 

The way she _says_ it – it makes something shift within him, as if his heart had suddenly been twisted inside his chest. It almost sounds like a _praise,_ which is – new. Unsettling. Weird. 

He shouldn't like it. He shouldn't think about Rey telling him he's _good_. He shouldn't replay those words in his mind until they lose all meaning and he's left there, his breath short on his lips and a weird sound in the back of his throat, just because she's being nice to him for once. 

Instead, he does all of these things.

They don't stop, though. He takes a step forward and she takes a tentative step backwards and they keep dancing despite it all, his hand on the small of her back, her hand on his shoulder, their fingers laced together. They must look ridiculous, he thinks – but they keep on dancing as if nothing else mattered. He almost feels his lips curve in a smile.

"Show-off," she mutters under her breath. 

"What part of _dancing lessons_ wasn't clear to you?" he asks her, but, as always, he's surprised to realize there's no animosity in his words. It feels like the fight has gone out of him a long time ago by now and Rey is not his nemesis anymore – just a person he's trying to tolerate despite how much she seems to enjoy tormenting him. 

The hand currently resting on his shoulder turns into a fist and she lightly punches him, because, apparently, that's how it goes now. He tries to be pissed off about it but the thing is – he _can't_ , and it scares him to death. 

"Don't be a smart ass," she tells him, flashing him an annoyed glance that he's very familiar with, but this time it's accompanied by a strange warmth in the pit of his stomach that he's never felt before. "You could have been terrible at it anyway". 

It feels so easy to laugh that he realizes he'd never laughed in her presence before only when he's met with her surprised gaze and he finds he likes to be able to surprise her, too.

He likes it more than he actually should. 

"My mother would have not allowed it," he replies, quietly, with a smile that's half pained, half amused – his usual reaction when it comes to his family. Her gaze lingers on his face as if she wanted to study him, and he wonders if she's still trying to memorize all his expressions. "She wants everything to be exactly how she has envisioned it." 

Rey lets out a breathy exhales that resembles a laughter and something warm comes to grip at his heart, a weird flare of pride for managing to tear a chuckle out of her.

"She sounds terrifying," she comments. Her eyes flicker between her feet and his face as if she was busy trying not to fall over, but he can glimpse the little smile hanging at the corner of her mouth, and the way her eyes _shine_ and he's taken aback by the notion that she's – she's _beautiful._ Of course he knew already but – she's in _his arms_ and she's _beautiful_. "I like her". 

A groan slips past his lips. "Of course you would." 

_She'd like you too_. The words are on the tip of his tongue, but he bites them back, because that would be _insane,_ no matter how true they ring. She would, of course she would – Rey is willful and stubborn and headstrong and annoying in that special way of hers that makes her shine, and his mother would absolutely _love_ her. He can't tell her that. 

Instead, he distracts himself from that thought (which somehow carves a place into his mind) by raising his arms and making her twirl on the spot, eliciting another silvery giggle from her. 

_Oh._

It's with a sense of surprise that he realizes he likes that. 

She gracefully twirls in his arms without losing her smile for a second and when he brings her closer again she beams up at him, as if she was happy to be _here_. It's so uncharacteristic that he doesn't know what to do with himself. 

"I think she did it for me. My mother making me take dancing lessons, I mean." He doesn't know what prompts him to tell her all of that, but it almost feels spontaneous and he doesn't want to fight it anymore, not when they're dancing, not when she's into his arms. "Well, she did it for herself too. I think she wanted to have someone in her family who actually knew how to dance at her galas, unlike my father who seems to have two left feet and no coordination to speak of".

She throws her head back when she laughs. It's something he's picking up so _quickly_ , as if his senses were attuned to her only, as if the world around them had dimmed and become a blur, and she was the only thing coming in sharp focus. He's starting to notice her little quirks, the entrancing dip of her dimples on the side of her face, the way the corners of eyes crinkle. The little nose-scrunch she does when she laughs. The pattern of freckles on the bridge of her nose that looks a bit like a constellation.

She gives him a flash of that smile he can't seem to erase from his mind. "That bad?" 

It's surprising, but he finds himself laughing too and he doesn't remember the last time he'd laughed as much.

"Pray you'll never have to witness him dancing," he replies, his lips curved in a smile that's way too easy, and even if they both know she'll never have to see his father dance, they pretend for a moment, and she giggles again, shaking in his arms and he shouldn't like it, he knows he shouldn't, but _oh_ , he does. "Anyway. Apart from that, I think she did it for me. She thought the discipline of dancing could help me with my anger issues".

She raises her eyes from her feet to glance his way, and she's weirdly serious, her eyes fixed on his face as if she wanted to read the answers on his lines, on the pattern of moles on his skin. "And it did? Help you?" 

"Not really," he says, with a shrug. She's getting surer, her steps only a bit insecure now, and dancing with her almost feels natural – which is weird, because he doesn't remember anything ever feeling natural in his life, not even dancing in the first place. "But now I know how to do this," he adds, before gripping her waist with his arm and doing the best impression of a _casquè_ he manages to achieve right now. 

Rey grips his shoulder in surprise, but then she leans into him, following him, bending to his will and trusting him to hold her like this. 

"A little bit of warning would have been nice," she tells him, breathless, still managing to flash him a smile even as she hovers above the ground in his arms.

He smirks, then brings her up again, flushed against him as her hair falls all around her face in messy waves. It feels easy to lean in and whisper, a breath away from her, "What fun would that be?" 

They stay for a minute like that, pressed against each other and breathing heavily and just _looking_ at each other and Ben – he doesn't know how it happens, he just knows he has the fleeting, terrifying thought of kissing her red lips, and once the idea has taken root inside his brain he can't seem able to stop thinking about it anymore. It feels like every part of his mind is rewritten by the possibility of it, and his skin feels electrical, his hand almost trembling, there where it's splayed at the small of her back. 

Her hands slide down his shoulders to rest on his chest, eliciting small shivers in their wake that he doesn't want to analize, and, before he can act on that thought (which is definitely absurd because he doesn't want to kiss Rey _at all_ ), she pushes away from him. Her cheeks are red and her eyes are glittering and she looks wild and radiant and–

He stops there. He _doesn't want_ to think about it. 

"That was nice," she says. Her voice sounds weirdly high-pitched, which is new, but she looks just like she usually looks when she's in his presence – a teasing smile, her arms crossed at her chest, her eyebrows arched up. She even pretends to pout a little bit. "Too bad I have nothing to tease you with". 

His eyebrows arch up, too. "You just witnessed me _ballroom dancing_ ". 

It's not like he _wants_ to be teased by her or that he _enjoys_ it – it's just that it doesn't make sense at all, for her not to torment him on this, when it's clear that it's ridiculous that a man such as Ben, the poster boy of Anger Management Issues, can dance like this. He even _feels_ ridiculous under her gaze, as if he had suddenly realized how weird it is, to dance like this in the middle of a parking lot with no music at all, holding what it's supposed to be your nemesis in your arms. 

"Yeah, but you're so good at it," she replies, with a shrug, paying him a compliment and making it look like an insult – a talent only Rey possesses. "How can I tease you about that?" 

He doesn't understand it, but he finds it's what usually happens when Rey's involved and a part of him almost likes it. 

The urge to be his usual, stupid self is too hard to contain, so he ends up asking her, "Did I sweep you off your feet? That's why you can't tease me, isn't it? You're _impressed_ ". 

Her checks are still flushed and he wonders if she's blushing or if she's just recovering from the exercise. Either way, he can't stop looking at her. "You _definitely_ did not sweep me off my feet". 

It feels surprisingly easy to smirk. "I _did_ ". 

"You did _not_ ". 

They argue like this as they walk back inside the club and it feels, strangely, like home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just wanted to thank you all for all the positive feedback, all the kudos and comments and bookmarks, you are all amazing and wonderful and i'm truly blown away. thank you so much ♥
> 
> also, friendly reminder that you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/akosmia) and [tumblr](http://kylorensx.tumblr.com/) ♥


	3. (iii)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little bit of trigger warning, this chapter briefly mentions panick attacks!! this is the heaviest chapter of this little story, i promise we'll be back to fluff and dumb idiots next week!

By the time he slides his keys into the lock of his apartment door, Ben has been through three different panic attacks and he feels like his head isn't really his anymore. He's weirdly numb, as if his body didn't belong to him anymore, but his bones seem to ache and his chest is heavy all the same, as if someone had buried him deep underground and he was clawing all around him for clean air. 

But mostly, he just feels tired. The only thing he wants to do right now is to curl up on his bed and close his eyes for a few hours and forget about this whole day and its consequences. 

"Ben? Is it you?" Poe's voice comes from the living room, confusion so easy to hear in his tone. He can imagine the puzzled frown on his face, and it almost elicits a smile from him. Almost. 

When Ben pokes into the living room, he has to blink the scene in for a moment, as if to make sense of it. Finn and Poe are cuddled on one of the couches, while Jannah and Rose are splayed on the other and they all look at him with a confused or wary expression on their faces. He doesn't blame them – he's not exactly the most agreeable person to ever grace this universe on good days, and today is _definitely_ not a good day. 

Before he realizes, his thoughts linger on _something_ and he briefly wonders where Rey is – but then he pretends not to think about it. 

"Hi," Ben says, waving a hand and trying his best to mask how out of it he actually feels. "Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt anything, I didn't know you were here," he adds, flashing an apologetic smile in their direction, which apparently leaves them befuddled. 

It's only when he watches their surprised expression that he realizes how little he smiles on a daily basis and how much of a shock it must be for all of them, to realize that he can actually move the muscles of his face in something that isn't a scowl. It doesn't exactly improve his mental health at the moment. 

"No worries, man, we were just watching a movie, you didn't interrupt anything," Poe says, with ease. He doesn't look as shocked as his friends by the fact that Ben apparently knows how to smile, but maybe it's because he's known him for his whole life and it doesn't come as a surprise, the notion that Ben Solo can act like a normal person every now and then, when he puts his mind to it. "What are you doing here? I thought you had to work overtime". 

He knows he should tell Poe - after all, Poe is his best friend, despite how different they are and how awful he is to him sometimes. Poe is the only one who manages to stand him and he's been through his anger issues and his breakdowns and has helped him finding the right therapist and he always tries to mediate between him and the rest of his crazy family. He's the one who's stuck by his side through it all, always ready to call him on his bullshit but also to comfort him. Despite how much he feels undeserving of it, Poe does love him. 

He should tell Poe. 

Instead, he shrugs. "I got off early," he replies, as he divests himself of his coat, leaving it on the coat hanger. He feels weirdly naked, even if he's still wearing his suit – but it feels like he's peeling another layer off his armor and the vulnerability that comes with it scares him. 

Poe hums in agreement, but his eyes never leave his frame and Ben knows he's studying him and that this kind of friendship comes with the high cost of being completely transparent to the other person. "You're okay? You look like shit". 

He wants to laugh, but he knows that if he starts now, a hysterical giggle will take hold of him and he won't stop for a while, and he doesn't want to end up like that, so he just shrugs again, as if he could put some distance between himself and his feelings like this. Not that it has worked so far, as his therapist likes to point out, but it can't hurt trying, can it? 

(Of course it can, but will that stop him? Not likely). 

"Yeah, of course," he replies, flatly. "I'm just tired". 

He's met with a nod, even if Poe's gaze doesn't really leave him and he knows he doesn't actually believe him but he's giving him time, as he always does when he knows there's something wrong. He feels a lump in his throat at the thought. 

"Alright. Want to join us? We've just started," he adds, nodding in the general direction of the TV.

Ben stares at the TV, then his gaze falls back on all of them – it almost feels like _family_ , the way they're sitting now. Rose and Jannah are comfortably splayed on the couch, sitting there as if they had spent their whole life in his apartment, and Finn is half sprawled on Poe's lap and it feels so _domestic_. He stares at them – the way they smile at each other, the ease of their intimacy, the way Finn's head fits perfect in the place between Poe's neck and shoulder, and he gulps. His heart twists in his chest and he feels weirdly out of place here, in the living room of his apartment. 

"No, thank you," he says in the end, running a hand through his hair. "I just want to lie down on my bed for a while. See you later," he adds, as he walks out of the living room before they can catch the tears welling in his eyes. 

Poe's voice follows him. "We're ordering pizza later, let me know if you want anything". 

He makes a non committal sound, while his legs keep on waking despite him not even being conscious of it. It feels like his body has been put in auto-drive, which is oddly pleasant, because having the responsibility of a body feels way too much for him right now, but it also leaves his mind more room to think, which isn't pleasant at all. 

His feet carry him to the kitchen out of their own accord and he's internally debating if starting the kettle for a mug of tea is worth the effort or if he should just go to sleep and call it a day, when he stops dead in his tracks because–

–because Rey's _here_. 

She's rummaging through his fridge and her back is turned on him, so she doesn't notice him right away, but he can tell it's her. He'd recognize the chestnut shade of her hair and the way it falls on her shoulders anywhere. She's humming a song under her breath and she looks so at home in his kitchen that for a moment he forgets she doesn't actually _live_ here. 

His brain can't seem to be able to wrap itself around the idea of Rey being here, so he blurts out the first thing he manages to come up with, which is honestly just his standard behavior when it comes to her. 

"Am I hallucinating or are you really here?" he asks, stopping in the doorway of the kitchen just to look at her. 

It feels like that's all he does, nowadays. 

Rey jolts at the sound of his voice and turns so fast in his direction her hair whips against her face. A strange thought possesses him, and he briefly imagines what it would feel like to brush those strands away from her cheeks and tuck them behind her ear, stroking her skin in the process. 

He tries to bury the insane thought somewhere in his mind and he tells himself he's lingering on it only because he's tired and clearly delirious after the day he's just had, but the thing is – the thought doesn't leave. He can't seem to be able to erase it from his mind, lately. 

The expression on her face is the same she always puts on when he's around – a captivating mix of exasperation and begrudged amusement that he can't quite understand, but that leaves him breathless. Her lips quirk up in the teasing smile he knows so well, as she steps away from the fridge, which closes with a soft thud. 

Her eyebrows shoot up. "Why would you ever hallucinate about me?" 

He shrugs. "I don't know, it seems that sort of day." He doesn't tell her that she seems to have taken hold of his thoughts lately, and he sees her even when he actively tries _not to_. "Have you ever considered paying rent, given the amount of time you spend here?" 

"Shut up." Her back hits the kitchen counter as she leans against it, her arms crossed over her chest and her head tilted to the side as if to study him. Her gaze is fixed on his face, and for a moment he sees something pass in the back of her eyes, but it fades too quickly to give it a name. "You love having me around, you just don't want to admit it".

The thing is – it's not exactly _true_ , but it's not _wrong_ either. He doesn't _search_ for her when he comes back home nor he _hopes_ for her to be there – that would be insane and all-around absurd and it would be like actively asking for a fight. But when he comes home from work and finds her sitting on his couch or hanging in his kitchen, he feels something warm blossom in his chest that he doesn't really want to understand but that's always just sort of _there_. 

He doesn't tell her that, obviously, but it feels surprisingly easy to snort. He still feels weirdly numb, as if he had lost control of his body, but Rey is a bright, sarcastic thread tethering him to this moment and even though he won't ever tell her that, he's glad for her presence for once in his life. 

It's not like it has to mean _something_. 

"Sure thing, I count the days until I see you again," he says, then, stepping in the kitchen. He feels her eyes on him as he walks over to the kettle and starts filling it with water. "What are you doing here anyway?" 

The annoyed sigh she lets out is so familiar his heart almost clenches upon hearing it, and he feels the well-known lump in his throat again, even if he can't explain it to himself.

"I've decided to rob you. What do you think?" she asks him, in that aggravated way of hers that she uses when he's being purposefully dense. The fact that he's learned to recognize her quirks and habits should scare him, but it doesn't – not when it comes to Rey, he supposes. "Poe invited us. Kaydel is joining us after work and we're going to order pizza. You should stay, so you can complain about me putting pineapple on my pizza again." 

He puts the kettle on and turns into her direction, raising his eyebrows. "Are you actually saying you want me around?" 

She scoffs, as if the mere thought of it was a really funny joke she's trying her best not to laugh to. He tries not to be offended by her reaction. 

It's not like he _cares_ , anyway. 

"Don't flatter yourself, I barely tolerate you," she tells him, but there's some sort of warmth in her tone that he tries not to linger on for too long, but that seems to color her voice more and more often lately, leaving him awake at night asking himself what all of this means. Her eyes are fixed on him, when she adds, "But I think you could use some company. You look like shit, you know." 

He very much knows, and even if he didn't, she's the second person to remind him of it in the span of a few minutes. It's starting to get a little bit insulting. "You really know how to make my day better". 

"Thanks," she replies, a smug grin spreading on her lips. "I try my best". 

"Yeah, I think you may have a talent," he comments, shaking his head as if to remove from his mind the image of that grin (which will probably haunt him forever). 

He walks over to where she stands and leans in to open the cupboard he knows Poe stashes his tea in, fully intent on stealing one of his tea bags and moving away just as quickly, but he doesn't realize just how close to her he's actually stepped like this and–

– he isn't prepared for the effect her _closeness_ has on him, when he looks down on her and catches her gaze. 

He's got another sarcastic comment on the tip of his tongue, because that's how they usually communicate, but all his words die there, on his lips, because she's so – so _close_. 

_Too fucking close_. 

She isn't speaking either, which is uncharacteristic of her – she's just _there_ , her breath on her lips, slightly tilting her head back to look up at him and it feels like this moment stretches to infinity, a whole lifetime compressed in the hitch of his breath in his throat, in the thundering beat of his heart.

Her body is pressed against the kitchen counter and he's not exactly pressed against her, but he's closer than he'd thought as he stands there, one hand resting on the cupboard over her head, the other unintentionally trapping her against the counter and he can feel her breathe, her chest rising and falling, the ghost of her breath against his neck. He can actually count the freckles on the bridge of her nose or the shades of hazel in her eyes and he can't–

He can't _think_ like this. 

She inhales sharply, and it's almost sobering, this gesture.

It reminds him of the night they met, when she'd breathed in with the same _violence_ , the same shocked expression on her face that she sports now and Ben can't tell if it's because she's repulsed by his closeness or if she's just surprised by it, but it's enough to prompt him to scramble away from her, the teabag he was looking for secured in his hands and a few images he shouldn't think about swirling in his mind. 

He wonders what the _fuck_ just happened, but he doesn't think he's actually ready for an answer.

There's a moment of silence between them as he puts the teabag in his mug and waits for the kettle to go off, his face probably crimson and his breath heavy. It's not quite as tense or charged as the silence before one of their fights usually is, but it's not comfortable either, and it hits him in this moment – the knowledge that being in Rey's presence is not so _terrible_ anymore and he's starting to feel at ease with her. 

"So," she starts, after a few minutes. He's got his back turned on her, so he can't really see her expression, but she sounds as awkward as he feels now and he wonders, again, what the hell has just passed between them. "What happened to make you look like shit? And don't tell me it's nothing, because I know you and I know something _has_ happened". 

Her words cause some kind of reaction within him he isn't able to prevent, and looking back, this is probably the moment that sets everything in motion and that changes him forever, the beginning of an avalanche that will brutally sweep him away – he feels _warm_ , as if he'd been suddenly wrapped in a blanket, and something in his heart gives, as if she had tugged at a secret heartstring of his, known to her only. 

He turns into her direction, at loss for words. "You _know_ me?" 

Why is this the thing that makes him crumble, he doesn't know – but the idea of Rey knowing him does _something_ to him he can't describe, as if she had pressed her hands down on his chest and knocked the air out of him. 

The freckles on the bridge of her nose stand out against her complexion when she blushes and he can't stop staring at them – it feels like it's all he's ever done since he first noticed them the night they danced, a few months ago. Sometimes he finds himself tracing the pattern of her freckles against his sheets at night when he can't sleep, as if it was a melody his fingers itched to play. 

She pointedly looks away from him, crossing her arms over her chest. "Well, I know your stupid _face_ ," she replies, scrunching up her nose in that way of hers he knows so well. "So, what happened?" 

The kettle goes off, but he pays no attention to it. He doesn't know what prompts him to say it – maybe he's still surprised by her admission of _knowing_ him, or maybe he's just tired after this long ass day. Or maybe, maybe – maybe Rey has sneaked her way into his life with her sarcastic smiles and her hard glares and witty retorts and she has carved a place in it just for her, and he can't help himself when it comes to her.

He looks down at his hands when he finally tells her the truth. "I quit the First Order". 

There's a moment of silence, and then her reaction hits him, immediate and explosive. 

" _What_?" His eyes are still on his hands, so he can't really see her face, but her surprise is a living thing, buzzing in the space between them. This time, it doesn't bring him any joy, the idea that he can catch her off guard, too. "But… _how_?" 

It feels easier not to look her in the eyes, so he busies himself by pouring the hot water in his mug – but he can still hear her breathing, as if his senses were attuned to her. Her eyes burn on his back, but he doesn't turn into her direction. 

"I'm not really sure. It just sort of… _happened_." He shrugs, stirring his tea and doing his best to avoid her gaze, even if he doesn't know why. Maybe he's afraid of what he'll read in the back of her eyes – he can't bear it, not if Rey stops looking at him the way she usually does, as if he was an infuriating riddle she was trying to crack. "It was stupid, really. Snoke– we fought about my mother's dinner party." 

When it's clear that he won't add anything else, she sighs and takes a few tentative steps into his direction, lingers next to him – not too close, but close enough that he can feel a bit of her warmth. 

It's almost _intoxicating_. 

"I'm– I'm lost, Ben," she tells him, and he sees, with the corner of his eye, the way she tilts her head back as if to take a better look at him. He can't really see her expression like this, but there's some sort of hesitation in the air, as if she wasn't sure about what she's allowed to do. 

There's a moment of silence and he wonders if she's studying him, wonders what she's reading in the tense line of his spine, in the set of his clenched jaw, in the nervous grip of his hands on the mug. 

Then, she lets out a deep breath and he can _hear_ that small, tentative smile of hers in her voice when she speaks again. "You don't have to tell me, but you look like you really need to let everything out. You _can_ talk to me, you know". 

He nods, absent-mindedly, even if the idea of talking to Rey feels _foreign_ , considering the fact that she probably thinks about killing him on a daily basis. And yet – hasn't he spent the last few months telling her the things he never told anyone, not even Poe? 

"I– I'm supposed to leave tomorrow and go visit my parents. There's this dinner party my mother has organized–" 

He waves, dismissively, dropping the spoon he's used to stir his tea in the sink. He's still deliberately looking at anything but her. 

"It's excruciating, honestly, and I have no idea why she gets so hung up about these sorts of things, but she does and if I miss it–" he trails off, shaking his head. The memory of Rey sitting beside him on his bed, one hand on his knee and her lips curved in a tentative smile hits him all of the sudden, and he knows he must be turning crimson. "Well, you know". 

Rey leans against the counter, her body so close to his he could stretch out his hand and brush against hers. He doesn't, of course. "Hasn't it ever crossed your mind, the idea that she might love you and want you by her side?"

The lump in his throat seems to have gotten bigger, especially when she talks like _that_ , her voice so soft and gentle and tender despite her words. 

He lets out a breathless laugh. "I think she just likes to boss me around, honestly, but who knows, maybe you're right". 

Something in him _dies_ to raise his eyes and meet her gaze, just to know what it feels like, to talk about _being loved_ while Rey looks at him, but he stays put because he's not brave enough to actually do it. 

"Anyway, Snoke knew about it because I had told him weeks ago that I couldn't be here this weekend and–" He can't suppress the shiver that runs through his body every time he thinks about his – well, former boss now. "This morning he came into my office and told me that something had come up and I had to work this weekend and I reminded him there was this family thing I had to attend to and he just–" 

He doesn't realize he's shaking until he sees his hands tremble under his eyes and he balls them up into fist, as if to pretend nothing is happening. And yet, his breath is heavy and he feels Rey's gaze on him, and he knows she _knows_. 

"He told me that he was disappointed in me," he continues, staring at the calm surface of his forgotten mug of tea, as if it could grant him the ability to rewind time and make this okay, somehow. "That when we first met he'd thought he'd seen something in me and he realized now he'd been wrong the whole time. He told me that I owed him everything and that I was nothing without him and– I just couldn't take it anymore. It's been _years_ and I was so fucking _tired_ and _torn apart_ and I know he enjoys every second of it, every time I break down, and– I told him I was quitting and then I left. I walked for hours around the city, I didn't care where I was going, I was just trying to come to terms with what I'd done". 

The notion finally sinks in and the dread, the horror, the frightening part of it – it all comes down on him and he feels like he can't breathe, as if all the air in the world wasn't enough for him right now, as if someone was choking him, pressing a hand down on his throat. 

For the first time since this whole conversation started, he looks up and his eyes search for Rey almost out of their own accord, as if she could grant him a sliver of calm.

"Oh my God," he breathes out, his voice shaky and uneven. He knows he's on the verge of crying and he doesn't know how to stop it, doesn't know how to come to terms with it, doesn't know– "What have I _done_?"

She doesn't hesitate. 

"You did the right thing," she replies, her voice sounding so _sure_. She takes another step into his direction, slipping in his personal space as easily as she has slipped into his life, and for once he doesn't want her to step away, doesn't want her to leave. He wants her to _stay_. "It must have been so awful. The way he talked to you and made you feel for years… _fucking hell_. I can't even imagine what it has been like. I'm so sorry, Ben. You did the right thing, getting rid of him". 

He knows. Of course he knows – he's sat through every day of work gritting his teeth and waiting for it to be over and Snoke fucking terrified him, with his piercing gaze and cruel smirk and his veiled threats, always urging him to leave his family and everyone he loved behind, always mocking him for his reluctance to do so, and yet. He can't quite convince himself of it. 

"He can ruin my career," he murmurs, his eyes fixed on the smattering of freckles on her complexion. He knows she's looking at him, but he can't bring himself to meet her gaze, not when he feels two deep breaths away from crumbling completely and he doesn't want Rey, of all people, to see him like this. "What if I never find a job again or he ends up sabotaging me, what if I'm ruined and–"

It happens so fast he can barely react, but, at the same time, it feels like it's happening in slow motion and he can see it unraveling in front of him in gentle movements, as if time had suddenly stopped. 

He's still talking, muttering nonsense after nonsense, out of breath and frantic, by the time Rey sighs and raises her arms and then – 

– then she takes his face into her hands, cupping it, cradling his jaw as if it was the most delicate thing in the world. Her touch is warm and grounding, her hands soft against his cheeks, and it feels like she's trying to bring him home from his own thoughts. 

It's so unexpected he _jolts_ and he can't remember the last time someone has touched him like this, so gently. 

"Ben," she says, softly. Her voice is barely above a whisper and when he finally meets her eyes, there's something in her gaze he can't decode, but that tugs at his heart in a way that he doesn't know if it's pleasant or not. "Breathe. Just breathe. You're alright". 

He does, quite obviously, what he does best – he stubbornly refuses to listen to anyone but his own internal monologue, which consists in a string of insults aimed at himself, alternated only by a few self-deprecating jokes, for variety. 

"But–" 

" _Breathe_ ," she repeats, more forcefully than before. "Come on, try with me. Focus on me". 

_That shouldn't be too hard_ , he wants to say, _you're all I've been able to think about lately. It's annoying_. 

For once in his life, he listens to what someone else is telling him and he focuses on Rey – on the way her shoulders rise and fall with each breath, how she inhales and exhales, the little puffs of air that ghost against his face, the reassuring warmth of her hazel eyes, the way her hands feel against his skin, and by the time he slowly comes back to reality, he's surprised to realize that his breath is no longer heavy and frantic, but synced to hers. 

He breathes in and out, slowly, following her lead, his eyes glued to the pattern of freckles on her face, his hands trembling at his sides. 

Her lips curve in a smile when she notices he's finally calming down.

"There you go," she says, so softly, with a tenderness that he never thought she was capable of. "You're doing so well. Just keep breathing, you're being so good". 

Her words hit something deep within him and he doesn't know how it happens and he isn't proud of it, but he – he fucking _whimpers_. 

It's a pitiful thing and he hates himself for it, and he knows he's just given Rey something to tease him with for years, but the most surprising thing is – she doesn't say anything about it.

She strokes his hair in gentle movements, as if not to startle him, and keeps on guiding him, helping him to breathe, murmuring low praises, telling him how good he is, inhaling and exhaling, _yes, just like that, you're so good_. At every gentle praise his heart thunders against his ribcage and something in him _dies_ to hear her say it for the rest of his life and he realizes in this moment – no one has ever told him he was _good_ , before Rey came along. 

"See? Not so hard, wasn't it?" she tells him, with the bright smile he's starting to recognize. He nods along, too focused on the way her hands feel on his face and the _things_ her praises are doing to him to remember how to speak, if he even knew in the first place. "Everything's alright, Ben. You're going to be fine".

Self-doubt is where he lives, so the only thing he manages to blurt out, despite the fog in his mind, is, "What if he ruins my career?" 

She tilts her head to the side and gives him a look that is both exasperated and amused. Maybe even a little bit fond, but – maybe his mind is playing tricks on him because why on Earth would Rey look at him with fondness in her eyes? 

"You know, it pains me to admit it, but I'm sure you are pretty good at what you do," she tells him, and her lips curve in a smile that's both teasing and gentle. Her hands are still on his face, in his hair, warming him up and grounding him to this moment. Her thumb strokes his cheekbone, gently. "I think you'll have no trouble finding another job. You will be alright, Ben". 

He gulps. She sounds so utterly _sure_ and it shouldn't surprise him anymore, the fact that she seems to know him better than anyone else in his life – and yet, it always comes as a shock, a vivid sensation that he feels underneath his skin. He feels like an open book under her gaze, and he doesn't know if he likes it or not. 

(He does.) 

"I'm just… so _scared_ ," he confesses, feeling himself blush at the vulnerable admission on his lips. "Snoke's been around since I was in college and– I tried so _hard_ to be what he wanted me to be. I've done everything he asked of me, I've given everything to him. The things I've _sacrificed_ for him– God, I know I've been an asshole all this time, but he... he made me think that there was no other option. That he was the only option I had". 

Something passes in the back of her eyes and her eyebrows knit together in the frown he's way too familiar with. He wonders for a moment if he's said the wrong thing again, if he has put his foot in his mouth again as he always does, if he's made her mad again – but she doesn't step away from him. Instead, one of her hands comes to brush a few strands of hair away from his forehead and she lets out a deep breath and he realizes in this moment–

– she's not mad at him. She's mad _for_ him. 

Oh. 

"Well, he isn't," she replies, as her palm comes to rest against his face again, warm and gentle and oh, so real and delicate and electrical at the same time. "He _isn't_. Fuck him, you can do so much better. You _deserve_ so much better, you understand me?" 

He can't do anything else but nod because her words are so _fierce_ and _intense_ – almost as if she was ready to don her armor and fight for him, which is the craziest idea ever because she can't stand him and they've spent the better part of the past year and a half fighting for the stupidest things. And yet, in the last few months Rey has been a constant presence in his life, a warm light illuminating the worst days with her bright smiles and her barbs and the laugh she always manages to tear out of him despite it all, and he can't help but feel at _home_ when she's around. 

"Good." She flashes him another glimpse of that smile he's starting to get used to. Her hands fall away from his face after a last, gentle stroke to his hair, but she doesn't move away from him. "Glad we finally agree on something". 

He chuckles, and he doesn't know if he's laughing at her words or at this whole situation, but some sort of deep-seated calm washes over him and he feels like he can finally breathe out in relief. He sags against the kitchen counter, letting out a sigh and feeling all of the sudden so impossibly _tired_. 

His gaze lingers on her when he speaks. "What do I do now?" 

She rests right beside him, her back against the kitchen counter, her eyes on him. There's a soft smile on the curve of her lips and something glittering in her gaze and he's back at the night they danced in the parking lot, when the thought of kissing her first came to his mind. 

It still hasn't left. 

"Well, you could drink your tea, for example, even though I think it's gotten cold. Then, you could step out of this stupid suit–" Her eyes flit to his frame for the briefest second, before they come back to his face, but there's a faint shade of red on her cheeks that he doesn't really understand. "–I mean, it's kind of nice in that boring way of yours, but I don't think it's that comfortable. You could wear something more comfortable and then, you could join us in the living room for pizza and a movie. I promise I'll even let you complain about me putting pineapple on my pizza". 

"Careful," he tells her, raising his eyebrows, but with a tentative smile on his lips. It's probably the first time he smiles since this whole day started. "If you keep this up I'll start to think you actually care about me". 

She scrunches up her nose, as if the idea was oddly repelling. "Alright, I'll let you complain about me putting pineapple on my pizza only for ten minutes," she concedes. "I'm not responsible for what happens after if you insist on it". 

It feels so easy to fall into that old, familiar pattern – she teases him, he teases her back, easy and natural, a dance they know all too well and that they've practiced countless times before. It's as if they had never stopped dancing, ever since that night.

"I'm sorry, but I cannot let a culinary crime like that go unpunished". 

She gives him her usual annoyed look, but there's something in the back of her eyes that looks like _warmth_. "Shut up, I've seen you eat peanut butter straight from the jar, you're in no position to lecture me about culinary crimes _._ " He can see the dimples in the smirk she flashes him, and something goes tight in his chest. " _Culinary crimes_. You're such a pretentious asshole". 

The laughter that slips past his lips is warm and real and genuine, and when he meets Rey's gaze, her lips are curved into that bright, wonderful smile he's starting to like way too much for his own good. 

"Fair enough," he replies. They're still so _close_ – their sides almost touch as they lean against the counter, but he tries his best to avoid brushing against her again. "I'll only complain for five minutes. I think I owe it to you for putting up with me today". 

She snorts. "Don't be stupid". 

In the end, he doesn't complain at all. He watches her eat her pineapple pizza (which _is_ a culinary crime, he won't hear otherwise) in silence, content to just sit there and look at her shining happiness, her bright smile, the warmth in her eyes that makes something flutter in his chest. 

It's only when she meets his eyes above the coffee table, flashing him a smile that looks happy and radiant and delicate at the same time – a smile she seems to reserve him only, lately – that he realizes his heart is thundering in his ribcage and something is tugging his lips upward in a matching smile, and it hits him all of the sudden. 

Oh. 

_Oh_. 

_Oh, fuck._

He's actually starting to _fall_ for Rey, isn't he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for all the kind words and positive feedback, you are amazing and i'm blown away, thank you ♥
> 
> also, you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/akosmia) and [tumblr](http://kylorensx.tumblr.com/) ♥ please keep me company while i stay locked in my house for the rest of the month :/


	4. (iv)

It's already night by the time Ben looks down at his car with the same resignation he'd sport if he were looking down at a racing horse who had just broken its leg. 

It's kind of what driving the Falcon feels like, anyway – like it's always a lottery between exploding in a million pieces and arriving safely at his destination. 

This time, apparently, the Falcon – which Ben's pretty sure has got a mind of its own – has opted for the middle ground and has decided to break down in the middle of a deserted road for no apparent reason and now here he is, staring at what's beneath the hood of his car in the forlorn hope of getting something out of it by virtue of the few afternoons he's spent in his father's garage during his teenage years. 

Of course, his life being enough of a joke as it is, the only thing he's managed to accomplish until now is eliciting more smoke. 

Something churns unpleasantly in his stomach and he grits his teeth. He briefly contemplates the idea of kicking the tire just for good measure, because being stranded in the middle of nowhere really takes something out of a person, no matter how well they're doing in therapy and how better they've gotten at handling their random bursts of anger now that they don't actually have to be terrified of going to work everyday – but then he decides against it, merely because he's pretty sure that his stupid car is just a breath away from falling to pieces for good, anyway, and he doesn't think it would improve the situation he's in. 

Still, it doesn't stop him from staring at it with what he hopes it's a disappointed look. 

"I thought we were both better than this," he mumbles, crossing his arms and pressing his lips together in a pout that's probably undignified, but that he's too tired to care about. "Come on. We've been through so much together. You can't let me down _now_ ". 

"Bad news–" Rey starts, as she comes back to the Falcon, slipping her phone in the pocket of her shorts. 

She stops to look at him with a puzzled expression on her face, then raises her eyebrows and he _knows_ , deep within his bones, she's about to tease him into the next century, and he'd be annoyed by it, if she weren't so devastatingly _familiar_ by now. He refuses to acknowledge the feelings lingering somewhere in his chest, but it doesn't mean they aren't _there_. 

"Are you talking to your _car_?" 

He lets out a groan, because _of course_. 

Just because being stuck in the middle of nowhere thanks to his stupid excuse of a car wasn't enough, he's stuck in the middle of nowhere with _Rey_ of all people, which will probably drive him insane in the matter of a few hours, if she doesn't decide to kill him before he can lose his mind. Either way, he doesn't think he's going to survive this because she's _Rey_ – with her natural tendency to annoy him and her utter delight at his aggravated sighs, her bright smiles and her stupid freckles and her long legs left uncovered by the denim shorts she's wearing. 

He looks away from her, ignoring the way she's staring at him – the hint of a smirk on her lips, the expression he knows too well from being on the receiving end of her mockery for way too long. He pretends not to like it, but there it is – his traitorous heart, pounding in his chest. 

"No, I'm not," he replies, even though he feels a blush spread on his face. He hopes the darkness will mask it, but he's sure that if an opportunity to torment him presents itself, Rey will pick it up immediately, because that's just how she functions. "What were you saying? I sincerely hope I heard you wrong and you haven't actually said _bad news_ ". 

She sighs and when he brings his eyes on her again (because, despite how hard he tries, he can't seem to be able to keep his eyes _off_ her) there's a grimace on her face. The moonlight bathes her profile in a silvery light, softening the sharp lines of her face, and even if they're stranded in the middle of nowhere, he can't help himself – something twists inside his chest when he looks at her and he has to remind himself not to be stupid about it. 

It's really hard to, when she looks like _that_. 

"Sorry to disappoint you. Nothing in the world would bring me more joy than saying you're hallucinating, but you heard me right," she replies, crossing her arms over her chest. She rubs her hands down her bare arms and lets out another deep breath, her eyes landing on the car in front of them, her lips pressed together in another grimace. "I called the mechanic, but he won't be able to make it until tomorrow morning". 

He's gripped by the sudden urge to fling himself off the nearest cliff. " _W_ _hat_?"

She shrinks into her shoulders and scrunches up her nose as she always does when she's irritated. "Well, he can't reach us now, he'll get lost," she says, perfectly reasonable as if they weren't stranded here on a deserted road thanks to his stupid car. "In case you haven't noticed, we're in the middle of nowhere and it's dark out here". 

_That's the fucking point_ , he wants to say, but he takes a deep breath and bites the words back, because, contrary to popular belief, he doesn't actually enjoy bickering pointlessly with Rey. 

(He kind of does).

"We'll miss the show," he points out, thinking about the concert they were supposed to be right now – which is the reason for him being stuck here in the first place, because _of course_ Poe would say that there were too many of them to fit his car and _of course_ he'd suggest Ben could drive Rey instead since she's the only one who manages to stand him among his friends, all of this said with an annoying wink and a wiggle of his eyebrows that Ben can't erase from his memories no matter how hard he tries. 

He doesn't want to investigate what Poe has picked up about _this_ , whatever _this_ is. Ignorance, he's decided, is bliss. 

Rey's shoulders slump and she purses her lips together in a pout. "I know," she murmurs, looking away from him, but not before he can catch a glimpse of her sad expression. "There's nothing we can do, though". 

There's such a resignation in her voice, as if she kind of expected to end up like this. As if she were already used to not getting what she wants.

Somehow, the idea of her being sad sits uneasily in his chest, so he clears his throat, desperately searching for something to say to change the topic and make her focus on something else. 

"What's the good news?" 

Half of her face is bathed in the moonlight when she turns into his direction, and the soft, iridescent glow of her skin makes her freckles stand out darker, mirroring the stars above them in the night sky. 

She furrows her delicate brows, clearly confused. "What?" 

"You started by saying _bad news_ , which I hope you did because you _also_ have good news," he explains, running a hand through his hair, which is all he can do to fight the urge to strangle himself for being so inept when it comes to _words_. Rey's eyes follow his movements with uncharacteristic attention, but, he supposes, there's not much to look at in the middle of the desert. "Unless, I suppose, you're a sadist and you enjoy giving me hope and then taking it away, in that case, congratulations, you did it". 

She blinks once, then twice. Her mouth opens, but it takes her a moment to speak, and Ben knows he shouldn't enjoy so much the few occasions in which he manages to surprise her, but the way she _looks_ at him – God, it feels like she's twisting a knife into his chest, and he likes it too much for his own good. 

Then, her lips curve in the smirk he's way too familiar with. "God, you're really going through it, aren't you?" 

He smiles, dryly. "Surprisingly as it sounds, being stuck in the middle of nowhere isn't the most exciting experience of my life". 

"Who would have thought." Her eyebrows rise up and she looks at him the way she always does – as if he were a joke she was trying her best to understand. For a moment, he wonders what she sees, but he probably doesn't want to hear the answer. "Anyway. Good news. There's a motel a few miles down the road. I saw the sign while I was on the phone". 

It's his turn to frown now. "A _motel_?" 

The idea takes hold of his brain before he can stop it, and then it's all he can think about – Rey in his motel room, hungry and unrelenting and desperate, her hands into his hair, her lips on his neck, her legs around his waist. The sweet, broken sounds he'd coax out of her mouth. The taste of her skin on his lips. The way she'd grind against him searching for the friction they both desperately need. 

He shouldn't think about it – he shouldn't, he knows he shouldn't, because it's pointless and dangerous and devastating and pining so desperately after someone who obviously can't stand him will only destroy him. But God, he'd let Rey destroy him every time. 

"Well, we can't stay here, unless you want to die of hypothermia in your stupid car," she points out, blissfully oblivious to the thoughts currently swarming in his mind. He's too busy pretending he isn't blushing to get offended on behalf of his car, which, he thinks, ultimately deserves to be insulted. "It's fucking cold out here". 

_Yeah, no shit_ , he wants to say. 

Of course she's cold – she's dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of denim shorts and _nothing else_ , and Ben has spent this whole day trying his best not to stare at her for too long or drive them off the road whenever he caught a glimpse of the freckles dusting the skin of her legs and arms. He hadn't ever thought he could have a _thing_ for freckles – and yet, here he is, fighting the urge to reach out and brush his fingers against the pattern on the bridge of her nose. 

He clears his throat, eyeing her outfit, and doing what he usually does best – blurting out the first things that graces his mind. "You didn't bring a jacket?" 

The exasperated look she reserves him should be enough to remind him that, given the perfect occasion and the opportunity to walk out free, Rey would kill him with her bare hands – and yet, he can't help but be a little bit awed (and maybe turned on) by her. God. He's so fucking _stupid_ , isn't he? _God_. 

"We were supposed to be at a _concert_ and it was supposed to be _crowded_ and _packed_ ," she explains, putting emphasis on each word as if she was dealing with a child. "No, Ben, I didn't bring a jacket". 

He doesn't know how it happens or what prompts him to do it – he only knows that she's hugging her middle and rubbing her arms as if to keep herself warm and it takes him exactly three seconds to divest himself of his leather jacket and hand it to her, doing his best to avoid looking her in the eyes and yet never managing to stop staring at her, because he's learned he's hopeless when it comes to her. 

Rey's hands close around the jacket before she can understand what is going on, and her surprised expression makes something in his chest twist again. "What–" she starts, then her confusion melts into something different and he can glimpse the exact moment she reaches an understanding, because her cheeks heat up and – _Oh_. 

He'd never seen her blush like this. She's _crimson_ and he finds her flushed cheeks almost endearing, which is – dangerous, really. 

"Take it," he says, clearing his throat, when it becomes clear that he finally managed to render her speechless for once. 

If he'd known that all it would take to finally shut her up was lending her his jacket, he would have tried it long ago when they first met. But that's the thing – he's smitten about her exactly because he can't manage to shut her up, and he likes her even when she insults the hell out of him. 

She's still staring at him, when she manages to speak again. "Aren't you cold?" 

As far as he's aware, he could keep an entire city warm just from the sheer heat coming from his face, but he doesn't need to tell her that. "Nah, I'm alright," he says, bringing a hand to his neck, nervously rubbing his skin. "Just… don't mention it to anyone". 

The moment she puts his jacket on something in his heart gives up and he stops pretending he's not staring at her, because – _oh_. It's clearly too big for her – she's so _small_ compared to him, it makes his head spin – and it falls above her thighs, and she looks both adorable and ridiculous, but the sight of her wrapped in his jacket sends his heart into utter _chaos_.

"Why? You don't want anyone to know you're actually _nice_ under that edgy asshole façade?" she asks him, raising her eyebrows, grabbing the lapels of the jacket and pulling at them to fix it. 

Her lips are curved in a smirk and he knows she's just messing with him for the sake of it as she usually does, but the thought of being called _nice_ by Rey plants itself into his mind and it brings him to a night in the kitchen of his apartment, when she had taken his face into her hands and had told him he was _good_ , and he hasn't managed to stop thinking about her words ever since. He imagines her whispering the same words into his ear as she slowly rocks above him, her arms wrapped around his neck, her lips brushing against his temple and– 

He shakes his head, fully knowing he's flustered. "I'm not nice". 

"You _are_ ," she says, tilting her head to the side to better look at him. Then, her smirk turns brighter, almost morphing into a smile as she takes him in. "Are you– oh my God, Ben. Are you _embarrassed_?" 

"I'm not," he mutters, raking a hand through his hair again and looking away from her, praying that she hasn't noticed the tips of his ears turning red. "So, this motel– can you lead the way? We should get going if we don't want to die out here".

She clearly takes pity on him, because she flashes him one last grin, before burying her hands into the pocket of his jacket with a nod and telling him, "This way". 

Ben follows her lead, falling in steps with her, and it should be awkward, because they have never been alone for so long without trying to kill each other, but – but instead, it's _comfortable_. He realizes now how weirdly calm he feels, when he's next to her. He briefly wonders when exactly they passed from fighting at every chance to _this_ , but he's not complaining. 

"So," she starts, after a while, turning slightly into his direction. "How's work? Poe told me you found a new job". 

The thought is so unexpected it takes him a beat to realize she's making _conversation_. He wonders if she cares about him enough to ask him that, or if she's just awfully bored. 

He decides he doesn't want to know. 

"It's fine," he replies, instead, shrugging. His hands are in the pockets of his jeans, because he's terrified he'll reach for her if he doesn't stop himself somehow. "More than fine, honestly. Miss Holdo– she's a good boss. She's everything Snoke wasn't and I– I didn't know you could wake up in the morning and not be fucking _terrified_ of going to work." He cringes at his own words, looking away from her. "Sorry, that was awkward. Forget about it, I-". 

She shakes her head, gently. 

"No, don't apologize. I'm sorry you had to go through that," she says, so softly, and she sounds so genuinely sorry for him that for a moment he fools himself into thinking she _cares_ for him, even if he knows she doesn't. "But I'm glad it worked out for you. You look good, you know". 

It's a familiar dance by now and he enjoys every second of it. He raises his eyebrows and flashes her a smirk, because he can't pass the opportunity to be a little shit, and – maybe it's wishful thinking, but there's some sort of relief in the back of her eyes, as if she were glad of seeing him tease her. 

"Oh, I look _good_?" he asks her. "How much time have you spent looking at me?" 

"I didn't mean it like that." She scoffs, but her cheeks are turning pink and for a moment he _wonders_ , but he quickly dismisses the thought. "I meant– you don't look like you're going to pass out or going on a rampage anymore". 

A laugh slips past his lips before he can stop it, and he has to convene that she has a point. The thing is – she often does. "Funny, my parents said the same thing". 

" _Oh_." Her eyes linger on him, and in the darkness she looks even _softer_ , something glittering in the back of her gaze. She takes a deep breath before the next few words, and it feels weirdly significant. "You talked to them?" 

He nods, realizing only in this moment he's shared with her something that they would have had to pry from him, once, and he doesn't know when he's let Rey Niima so deep underneath his skin, but she's _there_ , and it makes him more vulnerable that he's ever been and the worst thing is that – he likes it.

"Yeah. I did," he replies, sheepishly, looking at his own feet as they walk side by side. "I told them everything. What I went through, what Snoke said to me, what he threatened me with– they had no idea. They told me they were sorry and that they wished they'd been there for me and–" He shrugs, wondering why he's telling her all of this, but being too scared of the obvious answer. "It's what they have always said, even when I was a kid, but this time I believed them, you know?"

The look she gives him is at the same time soft and gentle and full of something he can't name, but that makes his heart twist in his chest, because it always ends up like this, with him looking at her like the fool he is, trying to decode the meaning behind every gesture in the pattern of her freckles. 

"I'm glad," she replies, her voice almost a whisper. She sounds almost surprised by her own words, as if she couldn't believe them either, which is exactly how he feels right now. "You deserve it, Ben. I'm happy you're doing better". 

He blinks down at her. It shouldn't surprise him so much, the fact that he can never guess what she's going to say, and yet it always comes as a shock to him. 

"I–Thank you. I _am_ doing better." He smiles, softly. Then, he acts like himself, because, of course he does. "Plus, you think I look _good_ , don't you?" 

Her aggravated sigh elicits a smug grin from him. "You'll never let me live this down, won't you?" 

He shakes his head. "Never". 

When they reach it, he finds out the motel is no different from any other motel he's ever glimpsed – an old structure, walls that once were white turned yellow from being in the sun for years, a neon sign announcing a vacancy. It looks like it has seen better days, but, he supposes, beggars can't be choosers and this will do fine, just for this night.

Rey goes to check them in and comes back after barely two minutes, all flushed cheeks and furrowed eyebrows. "Bad news". 

He blinks at her, wondering if he's time-traveled. "I swear I heard this before," he deadpans, as she approaches him, her cheeks on fire. "Tell me they had the rooms and we won't have to sleep in the parking lot". 

"Well," she starts, scrunching up her nose. She looks like she's trying her best to avoid his gaze, which confuses him even more, because it's uncharacteristic of Rey, who always looks him in the eyes even when she's about to tease him into the next life. "Look at the bright side, at least one of those statements is true". 

" _Rey_ ". 

"Look, there was only one room, alright?" she snaps, turning into his direction and flashing him the hard glare he's way too familiar with. "We'll have to share. Don't look at me like that, it's not my fault". 

But he's not thinking about whose fault it is. Honestly, blame is the farthest thing from his mind at the moment – the only thing he can think about right now is the fact that he has to share a room with Rey and he doesn't know how to act normal or pretend the idea doesn't affect him and she'll notice it, because of course she will. At least ten different scenarios play into his head and he can't find a single one that doesn't end in a disaster. 

(Unless, he thinks, he counts the one in which Rey kisses him as soon as he closes the door of their room, pinning him against the wall and tugging at his hair to bring him even closer. He doesn't dwell on it. Or, at least, he tries not to). 

He lets out a deep breath. "Alright". 

The room is okay at first glance – it's clearly old, but not dusty, and big enough for two. The lights work fine when he turns them on, and the en-suite bathroom seems to be alright, even if he hasn't checked it out yet. 

Then, he notices it. 

The bed. 

Singular. 

"Oh," he breathes out. 

The heat coming off his cheeks would probably be enough to power the whole of Coruscant for a few months. He tries his best to avoid looking her in the eyes, but he senses her even when he actively tries not to – she's always right _there,_ with her freckles and her dimpled smile and the way she looks at him that keeps him up at night. 

Rey seems to understand him immediately, because he can hear her sharp intake of breath. "Oh". 

The words are on his tongue before he can stop them, and he's not fully aware of what he's saying, he only knows he's talking just to fill this silence. 

"You take the bed, I can take the floor," he hears himself say, but he's not sure of how he reached this thought, because the only thing currently occupying his mind is the image of Rey pressed against him as he kisses his way down her body. "It's no problem, really, it's only for one night and I can sleep on the floor, just leave me a blanke–" 

"Don't be absurd," she interrupts his word vomit, bringing her eyes on him again. If she's touched by his gallant gesture, she's not showing it – instead, she's staring at him with the same determined expression he's learned to know. "We can share the bed. We're adults". 

In this moment, Ben feels anything but an adult – he's pretty sure he's regressed to his teenage years as he stands there, blushing and stammering and silently cursing Poe, Rey and even his last two brain cells for putting him in this fucking situation from which he doesn't know how to escape, unless hurling himself out of the window and running as fast as he can counts.

"Oh." He looks down at his hands, as if surprised they're there, then looks back at Rey, who is oddly as flustered as he is. "Right. Sure. Adults". 

He's not sure if he's making sense or if he's just putting together random words in the hope of getting a proper sentence out of them.

Rey raises her eyebrows, but she mercifully decides to ignore his apparent mental breakdown and busies herself rummaging in her backpack. She's still wearing his jacket, which does nothing to improve his ever-deteriorating mental health, and a few strands of hair fall on her face when she bends her head down, searching for something in her bag and he's suddenly aware he's not going to survive this night. 

"Here. Eat something." She hands him the granola bar she managed to retrieve from her backpack. He grabs it, dumbfounded. "I texted Poe, by the way. He said he's sorry we're missing the show. Also, he asked me to tell you to text him so he knows I've not killed you".

He lets himself fall on the bed, sitting at the foot of it as if deeply exhausted by this whole ordeal, which is not exactly far from the truth. 

"As if you'd ever be so blatant and careless with my murder. You probably have a ten-step plan you've been perfecting for years," he mutters, eliciting a laugh from her. It always amazes him to realize he did that – he made her _laugh_. It's – heady. "Anyway. I'm sorry," he adds, staring at the granola bar in his hands. 

Rey is unwrapping her own bar and tossing her backpack on the floor, when she looks at him. 

"What?" She toes off her shoes, then flops on the bed next to him, her legs crossed. Her shorts hitch a little when she sits and there's a lot more skin in front of him than he's used to, and he's suddenly transfixed by the pattern of freckles on her left knee. "Not that I mind you apologizing, it's always nice to know you're capable of acting like a human being, but what exactly are you apologizing for?" 

He grimaces, because that's his standard reaction to himself. 

"The show," he murmurs, so low he wonders if she's heard him at all, as he tries his best to shrink into his shoulders, as if he could disappear like this, even if Rey's eyes are fixed on him. "I didn't mean– I swear I checked my car before we left, I didn't know– I haven't planned this, I promise you this is not some petty revenge or some other shit, I–" 

" _Ben_." She always says his name as if both awed and exasperated, and he doesn't know how she does it, but it does something to his heart every time, as if she had squeezed it in a forceful grip. 

He shuts up immediately, because that's what he always does when she's involved. 

"Stop _worrying_ I never thought you would sabotage your own car and leave us stranded in the middle of nowhere just so you could mess with me. Unless…" She tilts her head to the side, and her smile looks _conspiratorial_. Familiar in a way it shouldn't be. _Domestic_. All things longs for, when it comes to Rey. "Is this your plan to finally get rid of me? Dragging me here so you can strangle me and then dispose of my body?" 

He lets out a bark of a laugh. "Yes, that's exactly how I planned it. You got me". The dimples in her smile makes his chest so awfully tight. "I'm still sorry, though, even if I didn't intentionally sabotage my car. I know you cared about the show". 

She looks at him as if she wanted to study him, as if all the answers in the world were written on the lines of his face. She's so _close_ – closer than she's ever been in months, and the briefest distance between her knee and his leg is suddenly the focal point of the universe. 

"You didn't, though, didn't you?" She must read the confusion right off his face, because she shakes her head with a small smile. "You didn't care about the show. Don't try to deny it, I know you didn't". 

He shrugs, even if he feels the tips of his ears already burning. "Well, I don't usually like loud and crowded places. You know that". 

"Exactly," she points out, taking a bite off the granola bar and munching on it. He still hasn't touched his, because his stomach feels like a dead weight inside his body. "That's why I don't understand why you're even here. I mean, thank you, but– why?" 

_Because I'm kind of whipped about you and I don't know when or how that happened, but now I can't stop thinking about you and I want to kiss every single one of your freckles while I am so blissfully deep inside you and it's driving me insane_. 

He clears his throat, doing his best to avoid looking at her. "Well, as most of my social interactions go, it's because Poe insisted". 

He's playing with the wrapping of his granola bar when she laughs, and that's when he makes a mistake – he raises his eyes even if he knows he shouldn't and seeing her there, so close to him, her radiant smile and her dimples and that brightness about her, undoes him and he blurts out the things he shouldn't even think about.

The things he has not allowed himself to indulge in. Those lingering images haunting his mind at night, when he tries to convince himself he's going to get over this weird attraction he's developed for her. 

The feelings he can't name. 

"Plus– I mean, you didn't have anyone to drive you there," he adds, fully knowing his cheeks are turning crimson. "So I thought I could do it. Drive you. Not that I managed that, but still".

It seems like he keeps on shocking her today, because her eyes go wide and she opens her mouth to speak, but no sound comes out of it. She blinks at him once, then twice. Then, she blinks a third time too, as if she wanted to make sure she's not hallucinating and Ben is gripped by the sudden urge of hurling himself out of the window and _run_.

Then, she speaks. "I–" she starts, eloquently. Her eyes linger on him, her expression alternating between confusion and something he can't quite name. " _Why_?" 

It feels heavy, when he finally replies.

"I just…. wanted to do _something_ for you". 

The silence that follows his words is charged like their silences usually were a long time ago, but in a different way – it's not nervous and tense like the one before a fight, but it has an electric quality about it that Ben feels deep within his bones, and something passes between them, so briefly he'll spend his whole life asking himself if he's imagined it. 

"Oh," she breathes out, and her cheeks are _so red_ – he's never seen her blush like this, not even when he's lent her his jacket barely an hour ago, and he wonders what it means. He entertains himself thinking he _does_ affect her somehow, but he knows it's just wishful thinking, because why would Rey be affected by him, of all people, when it's obvious she can't stand him? "So you were…. being _nice_?" 

It's the second time today she tells him he's nice and he's not sure for how long he can keep this up, because – because he's honestly two deep breaths and a bad decision away from surging forward and claiming her lips in a bruising kiss, desperate and needy, begging her to tell him again how nice he is, how good for her he's being. 

"Nonsense," he replies, looking away from her. It feels like it's all he's been doing today – dancing between wanting to stare at her and being terrified of glancing into her direction, a choreography of gazes that centers around Rey. "I don't know why you keep saying that. Are you sure you're alright and you haven't inhaled too much smoke?" 

"Shut up," it's her reply, and it sounds both exasperated and fond, which is not a combination he usually associates with Rey. "Sometimes I truly don't understand you. You go through all this trouble just to make yourself into an asshole and let everyone think you're awful, when you're actually quite nice when you're not being, you know, a shithead _._ I don't know why you keep fighting it. You're so _frustrating_ ". 

Her voice is low, gentle – almost a whisper, so soft his heart feels like it's on the verge of falling apart. He's frozen, sitting at the foot of this motel bed, asking himself if this is really happening or if he died of hypothermia in his car and this is just how his version of the afterlife looks like. He briefly wonders if he's in heaven or in hell.

He clears his throat again and acts like the idiot he is, always finding new, exciting ways to put his foot into his mouth. "So am I nice or am I frustrating?" 

Rey throws her head back and groans, a sound amplified by the small room they're in. 

"See? That's exactly what I mean!" Her gaze, when it settles on him again, is irritated but there's something in the back of her eyes that keeps him captivated, a glimmer of something that he can't recognize but that he feels deeply in his chest. "You're _impossible_. You drive me crazy most of the times and for months even being in your presence triggered my fight-or-flight response and I couldn't fathom how Poe could be friend with such a jerk–" 

"Please go on, this is doing wonders for my self-esteem". 

"–but," she continues, ignoring his interruption, her eyebrows dangerously high on her forehead as if they were in the middle of a fight again. But they're not, because her gaze is soft and there's a hint of smile on the curve of her lips, hidden only by the determination in the back of her eyes. The same determination he's been kind of entranced by ever since they met. "You say and do _things_ that leave me amazed and I realize you're actually _okay_ and I don't understand it. I don't understand _you_ and–" A faint pink hue spreads on her face, heightening the darkness of her freckles. "Maybe it's stupid, but I want to. I want to understand you". 

_Oh_. 

Were this another time, he'd do what he usually does when he tries his best to avoid talking about himself or what he feels – he'd say some dumb shit just to make Rey lose her patience and give up on him, because self-sabotaging is his favorite sport and he's a champion at it by now. But there's such an _earnestness_ in her words, almost as if she were baring herself of all the layers and the walls they have put between each other, and he can't do that to her, not now. 

He owes it to her, because no one has ever tried to _know_ him the way she does. 

"I– I don't know," he admits. 

He shrugs and Rey blinks him in, as if surprised by the sudden shift in his behaviour. 

"I think it's an odd combination of an awful personality to begin with, parents that only looked at me if I misbehaved and Snoke's own personal brand of conditioning." He presses his lips together before continuing, and he's never been so afraid in his life, as if being honest with Rey could give her the possibility of destroying him completely, and yet, he's trusting her despite it all. "I know it's no excuse for the way I act, I just– I don't know. I don't know how _not_ to act like this. I'm just that awful". 

It feels significant – he's never willingly shared so much of himself with someone else, not even with Poe, and he wonders why it's Rey, of all people, the one who manages to pry his ribcage open just to take a look at his beating heart. It's raw and terrifying and wonderful at the same time. He's trusting her with the fragile fluttering creature in his chest and he doesn't even know why – or, maybe he knows and he's too afraid of admitting it. 

Rey's eyes are so incredibly soft when she speaks. "You're not awful". 

He lets out a breathy chuckle, shaking his head, his eyes falling on the smattering of freckles on her knees. "You told me I was an asshole, like, the second time we met". 

The smile that spreads on her face when he looks up is both bright and hesitant, and Ben is starting to think that this is the one she reserves for him only, and he doesn't know how to feel about it. 

"And I stand by that, you were an asshole back then. I don't know what I ever did to you. But I was an asshole, too." She shrugs, as if months and months of insults and fights and screaming could be ignored just like that, and she looks so positively sure about it that he doesn't have it in him to question her. "We started out on the wrong foot, but then I learned to know you and you weren't so bad".

" _He wasn't so bad_ ," he mutters, with a sad, pensive smirk, shaking his head. "You could put that on my gravestone". 

"Shut up," she replies, kicking his leg with her foot. "What I mean is, you're actually nice. You put up with me messing with you all the time and you even showed me how to dance even if you clearly wanted to die back then". 

This time, the laugh that slips past his lips is warm and heartfelt and he knows she's noticed by the way her smile turns softer. "That obvious, uh?" 

"I could see the will to live slowly dim in the back of your eyes," she confirms, beaming up at him as if weirdly proud of herself. She's so awfully adorable like this – it feels almost like a punch to the gut. "Still, you put up with me. You always do" 

"I don't–" 

"You volunteered to drive me to a show you didn't even care about just to help me," she reminds him, raising her eyebrows and gesturing vaguely around her, as if to remind him why they're here in the first place, sitting on a motel bed in the middle of nowhere.

_Yeah, but that's because I became weirdly fixated with you and I did it just because I wanted a chance to be in your presence and maybe kiss you_ , he wants to say, but he knows that it would be a lie, because he never expected Rey to feel the way he feels, to be as oddly attracted to him as he is to her. He did it just because he wanted to do something nice for Rey, expecting nothing in return, because–

He shakes his head, staring down at his own hands and trying to regain some semblance of control over his own thoughts and the feelings she seems to elicit every time she's near. 

"Yeah." He swallows, avoiding her gaze. "And I got us stranded in the middle of nowhere. Good job, Ben". 

Her sigh is a deafening sound in the small room, and he thinks that this is it – this is where she stops trying, because he's impossible and full of shit and he doesn't know how to speak without putting his foot in his mouth in the process, always finding new ways to make others mad. It wouldn't be the first time it happens, either. He's bracing himself for it and then–

– then, Rey surprises him as she always does. In the back of his mind, she's a lightning, striking him with all her force and electricity, leaving him burned and scarred, reeling from the tension she always seems to bring with her and he knows, with a certainty that he feels in his bones, that he'll never be the same again. 

She leans in and before he can understand what is going on, she's in his space and she's _touching_ him. 

She rests her fingers underneath his chin and tilts his head backwards so he can meet her gaze, and her expression is so soft and open and _tender_ that he feels himself choke on his own breath. 

The granola bar he was holding falls from his hands and lands on the carpeted floor with a soft thud that he barely pays attention to, too focused on Rey. He's electrical – his skin burns there where it brushes hers, and she's a breath away from him, so close he could kiss her without even moving. He could just _lean in_. Her lips look like the most beautiful thing he's ever seen in his life and he'd _die_ to taste them. 

"I think–" she starts, her eyes searching for his. Her gaze doesn't waver and even if Ben wants to look away from her, he finds himself unable to do so, as if captivated by a spell. She's so close he could count all the freckles on her face, including the faintest ones on her forehead he had never noticed before. "You have it wrong. I think you have to accept the fact that you're actually _good_ ".

Her words are _devastating_. 

It's like an earthquake – everything she does sets his whole soul into motion, shaking the fundaments of his being. and he has to bite back the whimper that's currently clawing its way out of his throat as she looks at him like _that_. 

It's pathetic and humiliating but he can't help it – all of him seems to react to her words, a tension coiling deep inside his body, and a shiver runs down his spine when her thumb comes to brush against his jaw, stroking it gently as if to let her words sink underneath his skin. 

He can't breathe like this. He can't think. He wants–

_–everything_. He wants her and her words, the way she looks at him, the burning sensation he feels every time she touches him, that deep-seated tension that threatens to overwhelm him every time she's near. He wants her to tell him he's good, to kiss him as if she wanted to devour him, to hold him as if she couldn't get enough of him. He wants to lose himself in her, wants to press kisses down her body as if climbing down a ladder. He wants her to _want_ him. 

"I–uh," he says, as eloquently as ever.

Her smile is such a soft, intimate thing. "What?" she asks him, her words a whisper against his face. Her fingers inch upward and for the briefest moment her fingertips linger against the outline of his lips, making his head spin. "Didn't it ever occur to you that you might be good? That someone could _notice_?" 

His breath comes in ragged bursts by now, his heart racing in his chest. He knows he has to stop this – whatever _this_ is – before she notices the impact her words have on him, even if he knows he'll never be able to get as close to her again. Still, he squirms nervously on his spot, his hands in his lap in the futile attempt to hide _how_ exactly she's affecting him. The fact that she's so close and she's still wearing his jacket isn't helping him. 

As if reading his thoughts, she seems to get even _closer_ , tilting her head to the side. The old lights of the motel hit her freckles just right, turning them into a constellation on her fair skin and he could trace them with his mouth if he only–

"We should get to sleep," he says before he loses his resolve, his words almost slurred together. He feels drunk, high on her presence and on her words, desperate for anything she will give him, fully knowing it will only end in heartbreak. "It's late and– yeah we should– We'd better call it a night". 

She blinks him in. "Oh."

There's a moment of tense, charged silence that stretches for too uncomfortably long, then Rey lets her hand fall away from his face and presses her lips together, her cheeks suddenly going red as she steps away from him. 

She doesn't look him in the eyes, when she adds, "Yeah. Maybe you're right". 

He blinks her in, too, unable to understand the sudden change in her behavior but terrified of it at the same time. Terrified that she has picked up on something, that she has realized exactly how he feels about her, that she has noticed the way his body reacts to her praises. 

Then, because he doesn't want things to change between the two of them – because bickering with Rey is the best part of his days, even if he'll die before admitting it – he acts like himself, that is to say, he says the dumbest thing he can come up with while his brain is still recovering from the rush of blood further down. 

"Are you actually telling me I'm _right_?" he asks her, raising his eyebrows. His hands are still on his lap, trying to mask the effect she has on him. God, he hopes, he _prays_ she hasn't noticed, but judging by the way she's looking at anything but him right now, she probably has, which. Great. He pretends not to think about it. "Are you sure you're okay?" 

She lets out a little annoyed huff of breath that he finds way too endearing for his own good, even right now. 

"Don't worry, it won't happen again." Her eyes finally meet his, and there's a smile that looks tentative on her lips. Even more than usual, her brightness somehow dimmed. Maybe she's just tired, he tells himself, but he can't shake the idea that she _knows_ , somehow, and she's _repelled_. "Come on, let's get to sleep. I'll let you choose your side of the bed, I'm feeling generous tonight". 

Oh. 

Right. 

He'd forgotten he's got to share the bed with Rey. He's not going to survive this, isn't he? 

They get ready in silence and Ben does his best to avoid looking at her as if he could get burned if he only met her gaze. And yet, her presence is impossible to ignore. It feels like it fills the whole room, and the only thing he can hear is Rey, her breath, the noises she makes when she walks into a chair, the soft rustling of clothes coming from her side of the room. 

The last sound alarms him, but when he shyly turns into her direction, Rey has shed his jacket and folded it neatly on a chair, but she has thankfully kept her clothes on, because he would have died otherwise. He does the same, bending down only to remove his boots, then they climb into bed in silence while Rey turns off the light and–

– she's _there_. 

She's there, in this bed with him. 

The thought is enough to turn his heart into a thundering mess.

He can hear her breath and it's the loudest thing in the world right now, his universe reduced to this quiet rhythm he's so entranced by. He lies on his side, his back turned to her, but he's hyper aware of her presence, as if she were in the back of his mind too, always reminding him of her existence. There's a weight on the other side of the bed that unbalances him, and there's another heartbeat that pulses with his own. He realizes it's the first time in years he sleeps with someone by his side and the thought makes his chest ache. 

They stay in silence for a few minutes and he thinks she's fallen asleep, when–

"Ben?" Her voice is barely a whisper, tinted with something he can't name, but that makes his heart twist painfully in his ribcage. 

His own voice is softer than it's ever been, when he replies. "Yeah?" 

There's another silence and it feels so _tense_ and _nervous_ , as the moments right before a storm, and it has never felt this way before. Something has changed this night – he can feel it in the air before she speaks and he doesn't know what to do. He swears he can feel the electricity between them, and he wonders if Rey can feel it too. 

She lets out a deep breath before speaking, as if preparing herself for a fight. 

"Nothing," she says, in the end, with a wistful sound that almost makes him turn around and ask her what it means, if she's okay, if he did something wrong. He wants to tell her he's sorry, wants to hold her in his arms and press a kiss to her forehead. But, of course, he doesn't. "Just...thank you. For driving me. Even if we didn't make it, it was nice of you and– Thank you, I guess". 

His heart twists again in his chest at how small and uncertain her voice sounds and the utter honesty in those words prevents him from turning even this into another moment of self-deprecation. "You're welcome". 

It's only when she finally falls asleep and she somehow rolls over, her arm swung around his waist as she buries her head between his shoulder blades, a soft snore coming from her that he finds weirdly entrancing, that he has to admit defeat and tell himself that maybe, maybe–

–maybe he's in love with Rey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these two idiots, am i right?
> 
> also, friendly reminder that you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/akosmia) and [tumblr](http://kylorensx.tumblr.com/), probably shitposting while in lockdown for the next month *fingerguns*


	5. (v)

He's silently scrolling down his phone while he waits for Poe and the others to stop fighting about which snacks to buy before the movie starts (which is a stupid thing to fight about in the first place, since the only possible answer according to Poe is _all of them_ ), when someone tackles him, making him lose his balance on his feet and crash unceremoniously in the cardboard poster promoting the new _Galaxy Battles_ movie. 

An undignified sound – something between a shout and a gasp – slips past his mouth, catching the attention of the Friday night crowd at the movies, and were this another occasion he would have schooled his face into his usual frown and glared at the direction of anyone who even _dared_ to look at him because that's just who he is as a person, but now but he pays it no mind because–

–because Rey's _here_.

_Oh._

It's a knife to his heart. 

The brightness of her eyes, the warmth of her hair, the entrancing pattern of the freckles he can't stop thinking about – it all comes back to him like a punch in the gut, and it's in this moment that he realizes that this is the first time he sees her in weeks. She looks vibrant and radiant as always, so utterly beautiful it takes his breath away, and if he thought the distance could make those stupid feelings go away, well.

He was wrong. He was so fucking _wrong_. 

It's not the first time he's been wrong about something, when it comes to Rey. 

"You've been avoiding me," she announces as he gets back on his feet. 

She's staring up with a smug expression that wouldn't look out of place in a spy movie, when the villain slowly turns on their chair as they caress their white cat. Her lips are curled into a smile that sends shivers down his spine, because it looks like a threat and a promise at the same time, and he doesn't know if he can't deal with it right now. 

It's almost instinctive to bring a hand to his chest, lingering on the place where his heart is beating erratically against his ribcage, even if he doesn't know if it's because of the prank she has played on him or just because of her, full stop. 

"Jesus Christ, Rey. You scared the shit out of me." His breath is still ragged, when he speaks, but she doesn't seem to show any semblance of guilt, which is nothing new when it comes to her. She was probably just trying to kill him, as usual. "Do you usually sneak up on people like that?" 

The way she tilts her head to the side to better look at him is so awfully familiar that his heart clenches in his chest at the sight and he has to tell himself to stop being stupid about it.

Not that it works, but still. 

"Only on the ones that are avoiding me," she replies, crossing her arms over her chest as she usually does when she confronts him – or, better, calls him on his bullshit. 

It takes him a moment. The meaning of her words slowly reaches him and he – he's breathless for a moment, then he _blushes,_ his eyes suddenly flying to his shoes as if they were the most interesting sight this theater had to offer, while her words play on repeat in his mind. 

The thing is – she's right. He's been avoiding her. 

He honestly didn't think she'd notice. 

"What are you talking about? I'm not avoiding you," he says, lying through his teeth like the idiot he is, because he'd rather make a fool of himself than admit she's right. Because otherwise – he'd have to admit she's right about _him_ , too, and he can't. 

His gaze lands on Poe, who's currently flashing him what Ben supposes is an encouraging smile and a thumbs up, followed by a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows that's starting to get irritating. The sight of it makes him flare in anger, but he stays put, letting out a deep breath, because sometimes, surprisingly enough, therapy really does work.

He brings his eyes back on Rey, eyeing her sternly. "I thought you weren't coming tonight. Poe–" He throws another glare at his best friend, over his shoulder. "–told me you had to work". 

If Rey is put off by his surly demeanor, she doesn't show it – but, after all, she's seen worse, when it comes to him, and she's surely not discouraged by a scowl. Which makes his heart twist in his chest, when he thinks about it. 

"And miss this?" 

This confuses him. "The movie?" 

The smile on her lips morphs into something different – it turns softer, gentler, almost hesitant. It's with a lurch of his heart that he realizes this is the smile she reserves for him and oh, how much he's missed it. How much he's missed _her_. 

"You." 

She doesn't look away from him and she must certainly notice his reaction – how a faint shade of red spreads on his face and his jaw goes slack at her words because she does something _unexplainable_ to his heart and he doesn't know what to say _that_. 

She must take pity on him, because she smiles again, still so softly, and tells him, "I asked Poe to tell you I wasn't coming". 

He tries to regain some sort of control on his mind, even if his brain is currently giving him the cerebral equivalent of an error message.

" _What?_ " he asks her. He turns into Poe's general direction, glaring at him again (to which Poe replies with a shrug and his usual unbothered smile), before bringing his eyes on her again, because, despite it all, he can't look away from her, not really. She captivates him, as if she had put him under a spell. "Why would you do that?" 

Her eyebrows rise up in a dramatic way. "Because you've been _avoiding_ me, I thought we had made that one clear." She never loses the brightness about her that sends his heart into chaos and Ben doesn't know what to do with himself now that she's here, confronting him. In his brilliant plan of avoiding her until the end of his days, he hadn't thought that maybe Rey would find a way to actually ask him about _why_ he's avoiding her. "If you had known I'd be there, you would have probably bolted out of this theater". 

Ben, a known idiot, decides that the best course of action is just being the most stubborn version of himself he can be. "I'm not avoiding you," he says, sounding almost like a petulant child. 

Rey, of course, isn't fooled by him – maybe because, despite all his efforts, she's learned to know him, or maybe because she can easily read the truth off the lines of his face right now. In any case, she lets out an exasperated sigh and looks at him as if wondering how to tell him he's being an idiot. 

"Oh, _please_ ," she breathes out, then, sounding utterly done with him. 

This, he can handle. It feels like he's threading on a familiar ground now – Rey being annoyed by him has been kind of his constant in the last few years and it's safe, harmless. He can deal with an irritated Rey. What he can't deal with is the way his heart thunders in his chest everytime she looks at him, as if it died to claw its way out of his throat and present itself at her feet.

"Even Poe is starting to get suspicious and– look–" She sighs, as if exasperated. "I know he's your childhood best friend and I love him, don't get me wrong, but he usually has the deductive skills of a chair, so". 

His eyes land on Poe again, who's busy talking with Finn about something Ben can't catch from this distance. If he feels Ben's gaze on him, he pretends not to notice – which is very wise, right now, because Ben is two deep breaths away from throttling his best friend. 

Then, because apparently being a stubborn imbecile is his only personality trait lately, he keeps the charade on. "Don't be absurd. Poe isn't getting suspicious". 

Rey's eyebrows reach new heights, when he glances her way. "Are you going to deny everything I say?" 

"If you keep blurting out nonsense, yes, I am". 

It feels just like one of their fights – he says something, she says something back, biting and sarcastic and utterly wonderful, a practiced dance between the two of them they never seem to be able to give up, and he realizes only in this moment that he's missed this. The adrenaline rush of their fights, the way bickering with her makes every day brighter, the fact that she knows what to say to shut him up, the way she looks at him, the grin on her lips, that bright thread of unspoiled happiness he follows back home everytime she teases him – it's all so familiar, _intimate_. Almost domestic and he realizes–

He's missed her as if someone had cut off one of his limbs.

Which is stupid, because he's the one who's been avoiding her, but his feelings have been an irrational chaos ever since he first saw her, that night in his apartment so long ago, and he's _missed_ her. He's missed her as a physical sensation, as if her absence were an unknown force pressing down on his chest, preventing him from breathing. 

"For your information," she starts, pointing at him in a very ominous way. Her lips twitch, as if in a smile, but it's probably a trick of the lights. "Poe _is_ getting suspicious. He asked me if we had hooked up the night of the concert and you had embarrassed yourself and if that was the reason you were avoiding me". 

His brain comes to a halt. 

" _What_?" He knows his voice sounds weirdly high-pitched, but he can't really be blamed, can he? His face feels on fire and he hopes, he _prays_ his hair is doing its best to hide the tips of his ear, currently flushed red. He clears his throat, trying his best to reboot his brain and failing, which is probably why he ends up blurting, of all things, "Thanks for the vote of confidence, I guess". 

His words are met with a giggle from Rey. It's such a pure, silvery sound that he's taken aback as if he were hearing it for the first time. The chaos around them ebbs and disappears and the only thing he can focus on is her – the sounds coming out of her mouth, the entrancing way her shoulders shake, the scrunched-nose thing she does when she giggles. 

It feels like falling in love all over again. Like plunging, throwing himself, free-falling in love and he realizes he can't stop it – no more than he can stop the Earth from turning or the sun from rising. 

"Don't worry," she says, then, flashing him one of her dimpled smiles he's so painfully endeared by. "I told him you rocked my world and played my body like a violin". 

He's pretty sure he chokes on his breath. He's not really _aware_ of it, but he realizes he's having trouble inhaling and exhaling the air he's always taken for granted, what it feels like a lifetime ago. Maybe he should have appreciated the complex mechanic of breathing while he still had the chance. He's also pretty sure he's turned scarlet by now, if the heat coming from his face is any indication, but he doesn't want to investigate that. 

He opens his mouth, then closes it. His eyes never wander off Rey, who's looking at him smugly as if she had won a contest just by eliciting this kind of reaction out of him. 

" _Rey_ ," he manages to croak. "What the f–" 

She lets out another sigh and rolls her eyes. "I'm _kidding_ ," she informs him, her eyebrows raised, clearly exasperated as if she were dealing with an annoying child. Ben blinks her in, assuring himself he's not hallucinating. "I told him that nothing happened that night because of course it wouldn't, but if something had happened, I'm sure you would have been pretty great at it". 

This, somehow, makes things worse. His brain stops functioning altogether and he doesn't remember how _talking_ works, which is inconvenient, because Rey is looking at him and she clearly expects an answer from him, blissfully unaware that she's just turned his brain into mush. 

Words. He knows them. He's used them before. He can do this. 

He clears his throat. "What makes you think I'd be great at it?" 

He clearly can't do this. 

Rey blinks at him. A blush spreads on her cheeks, heightening the freckles he can't stop thinking about, and even if right now he wants to sink into the floor, never to be seen again, a part of him can still appreciate the beauty of her face, as the last wish of a dying man. 

She clears her throat, too. "Are you saying you'd be _bad_ at it?" 

He definitely can't do this. How did his life come to this, anyway? Why is he here, talking about his prowess in bed with Rey of all the people? And most of all, why is he making a fool of himself like the idiot he is? It's not like he'll ever get a chance to show her if he's actually _great at it_ or not, so why are they even talking about it in the first place? 

_Rey thinks you'd be great at it_ , a voice whispers. Funnily enough, it's the same voice that reminds him she also praised him. Multiple times. 

He tries to shut it up. 

"You know what," he says, his cheeks flaming red, his eyes landing on anything but Rey. It's funny how a pit doesn't open under your feet when you most need it to. "This conversation is taking a weird turn. Maybe we should just end it here. Nice talking to you, see you aroun–"

"Where do you think you're going?" 

Of course, Rey being Rey, she surprises him – but then, is he _really_ surprised? It feels like in some part of his soul he's learned to know her and somehow he expects her to do the things he never expects her to do. It's twisted but he doesn't know how else to explain it. She's an earthquake that shakes him to his core, and he almost expects her to. 

She grabs his arm just as he's trying to walk away and tugs at him, bringing him back to where he was, which is both a few feet away from her and a state of painful embarrassment. Her grip on him is stronger than he'd expected from her, her slender fingers digging in the fabric of his plaid shirt, and when he meets her gaze, she's looking at him with the same fierce determination he's so familiar with. 

It tugs at some string of his heart he never knew it existed, until she came around. 

"You're not allowed to leave until you tell me why you've been avoiding me," she tells him, her brows furrowed together in a frown. 

He swallows, oddly entranced by the way she's staring up at him, her eyes sparkling with something he can't understand. Her hand is still resting on his bicep, sending shivers down his spine in that delicious way he's learned to associate with her touch, and he wonders if she's holding him because she thinks he's going to run again or she just hasn't noticed. 

Or if maybe, maybe – she just wants to touch him. 

"I'm not avoiding you," he repeats, avoiding her eyes like the liar he is. Then, because, despite his obvious idiocy, he doesn't want Rey to feel bad about this, he shrugs and adds, "It's not like we usually hang out, anyway". 

Her hand falls away as she looks at him and presses her lips together. He bites back the undignified whine that threatens to leave his lips when she lets him go, feeling her absence as a physical sensation. 

"I know, but we used to… run into each other". She says it as if she were weirdly disappointed they don't run into each other anymore, and Ben doesn't know what to make of it, because why on earth Rey would be disappointed? He'd thought she'd celebrate, honestly. "Now everytime I'm at your place you lock yourself in your room and if I hang out with Poe and the others you always come up with an excuse". 

He grimaces – the thing is, she's right. Of course she is – it's like she knows him better than he knows himself and can read him easily, as if he were an open book. And yes, he's been avoiding her, because it scares him half to death, the idea of being so transparent in her presence, and he knows, he _knows_ she'll read his feelings right off his face and he'll lose her, because why would she ever bother with him, if she knew how devastatingly in love he is with her? It feels easier to just avoid her. 

He'll lose her either way – at least, this way he has a little control over it. 

And yet, he can't help it. He's missed her as if someone had ripped the heart out of him, and being in her presence again – it's way too familiar, and it's so _easy_ , falling into the same old patterns. 

"Are you saying this because you missed me?" 

The words are said with his usual teasing tone and accompanied by his usual smirk and yet – they sound way more hopeful, yearning, desperate than he'd intended them to be, because he _wants_ her to miss him but he _knows_ she doesn't and this duality is tearing him apart. 

The little exasperated smile on her face elicits a twist of his heart. "I _didn't_ miss you," she replies, but she sounds – fond, almost wistful. As if she did miss him, somehow, and was scared of admitting it. Wishful thinking, he knows, but he can't help but _wonder_ for a second. "But I also don't want to be the reason for your isolation. I– I don't want to be a nuisance". 

It's the way she says it that makes him crumble. 

Rey is a force of nature, something wild and unstoppable, radiating a kind of fierce determination that always leaves him breathless and that he's so enamored with. She always knows what to say, how to tease him, how to push him and even how to comfort him and she's always so utterly sure of herself, as if fully owning her world and everything in it. Ben – inseure, terrified Ben, who's always seen the world as some frightening thing out to get him – has always admired her for it, even when he couldn't stand her, even when things were easy and she was just someone he barely tolerated. 

And yet, there's nothing of her usual confidence in the way she looks at him now. She shrinks into her shoulders as if she wanted to disappear and there's a nervousness about her that he can read right on the lines of her lovely face. She's twisting her hands, as if to have something to do, and a part of him wants to reach out and lace his fingers with hers to soothe her. 

He doesn't. 

But, in some way, he does – he reaches out and tells her the truth. Half of it, at least. 

"You're not a nuisance," he tells her. It comes out as a whisper, and he's surprised by the softness in his own voice, something he didn't think he was capable of. Her eyes widen and her mouth parts, but no sound comes out of it, which is great, because he doesn't know how to do this if she starts talking. "You could never be. You're– you're _you_ ". 

She doesn't say anything, but she lets out a shuddering breath and she looks at him as if he were saying something life-changing. 

"And you're right, I have been avoiding you, but–" He brings a hand to his neck, rubbing it nervously the way he always does when she's around. He takes a deep breath before talking, as if he could calm himself like this. "It has nothing to do with you. You've done nothing wrong, I was just being dumb". 

It takes her a few minutes to elaborate his words and he doesn't blame her, because, well, there's a lot to unpack there and he's not sure he wants to know what she's thinking about right now. Then, she softly shakes her head, a few wisps of hair clinging to her temples. He's so, so tempted to brush them away. 

"I just–" she starts, before trailing off and pressing her lips together. Then, she does what she does best – she surprises him, again. "I _am_ sorry. I know it was my fault and I– I didn't want to make you uncomfortable the night of the concert. The things I said, the way I acted– God, I even _cuddled_ you that night and it must have been horrible, I didn't realize– I know I made uncomfortable and I'm sorry, I never wanted to–" 

She talks a lot when she's nervous. It's a thing he didn't know before. 

"You didn't make me uncomfortable," he interrupts her, because as unexpected and surprising is to hear Rey apologize to him, she _shouldn't_. She didn't do anything – other than make him love her so desperately. But he doesn't think she has to apologize for that. 

Her lips curve into a nervous smile when she meets his gaze. "You looked like a deer in front of the headlights". 

_Yeah, because you were praising me and my body had decided it was a good moment to betray me and I also may or may not have fallen for you like the idiot I am, so you can imagine the kind of stress I was under_ , he wants to say, but of course he doesn't, because he doesn't want to make more of a fool of himself and she probably doesn't want to hear about his stupid feelings anyway. 

"I'm just– not used to it," he tells her, then, shrugging again and burying his hands in the pocket of his jeans, as if to prevent himself from reaching out for her. "Being praised. Being– told nice things, I suppose".

Rey must see the way his face turns even more crimson at his own words, because her expression morphs into something softer, almost tender, which is not a word he would have used to describe her, long ago. But he's _seen_ her now and he knows she can be _sweet_ and _tender_ and _loving_ and that's the worst part, isn't it? Knowing she can be all of those things, and yet having to settle himself for never having any of it. 

"Oh." She inhales sharply. "Oh. Ben–" 

If she starts to praise him again, he'll _lose_ it and he'll probably do something he'll regret later. 

(Like kiss her like he's dreamed to do for months, slow and deep and desperate, her lips parting so sweetly for him, a tremulous gasp escaping her mouth, her breath mingled with his own, her hands threading through his hair and–) 

"I just didn't know how to react," he interrupts her again before she can say anything, before she can pull him apart at the seams _again_. "I'm sorry for the way I acted that night. I was rude and horrible to you. And I'm sorry for avoiding you, after. I thought I had made a fool of myself that night and that you probably hated me and– yeah, I was embarrassed, but it had nothing to do with you. You were so _kind_ and I– I'm just awful when it comes to social skills, you know". 

Which is not actually far from the truth – if you exclude the fact that the whole reason for him to make a fool of himself in the first place is because he's in love with her and she probably can tell by the way he glances her way, his cheeks on fire, his heart on his lips. 

And yet, she smiles softly – the kind of smile that she seems to gift him more and more often, and that always feels like a punch to his gut, in the best way. 

"You're not awful," she murmurs. She raises her arm and for a second he thinks she's about to touch him again, her hand lingering in the space between them as if wondering if she's allowed to, but then she brings it to her face, nervously tucking a few wisps of hair beneath her ear. "I thought I'd been clear last time".

Another blush spreads on his face as he's reminded of what happened last time she tried to be nice to him. He clears his throat, willing his body not to betray him this time – and yet, fully knowing it's a losing battle, because he seems to always lose control of his own body and mind every time Rey's involved. 

"Yeah, right," he says, sheepishly. The tips of his ears are flushed hot and he wants to _disappear_. "Anyway. I'm sorry for avoiding you. You did nothing wrong, I was just being dumb. As usual". 

She does the things she usually does when she's mad – she knits her eyebrows together and looks at him with a storm in her hazel eyes. He wonders what he's said to make her flare up like this again. He'd thought he was getting better at this – better at understanding her, at threading through their conversations without making her explode. Better at being himself, with her. 

"Ben Solo," she starts, his name sounding more like a threat on her lips. "If you don't stop being mean to yourself I swear I'll never leave you alone". 

Oh.

_Then don't,_ he wants to say, _I don't want you to leave me alone_. 

A soft chuckle escapes his lips and he shakes his head, as if to get rid of that awful, beautiful thought. "I'd be careful about that if I were you. You don't want to be stuck with me". 

_God_. The way she _looks_ at him. It feels like she's trying to kill him, with her bright eyes and dimpled smile and that smattering of freckles he's so obsessed with and the worst part is – he'd let her. 

He'd let her do anything to him. 

"Who says I don't?" A brief, stunned silence follows her words, as he tries to make sense of them. She sounds so – so _sure_ , so _earnest_. It doesn't feel like another one of her jokes, but he can't bring himself to believe it, because it will only break his heart in the end and he can't deal with it. 

She must sense his surprise and his hesitancy, because her cheeks heat up again, a faint pink hue spreading on her face, and she smiles, even more softly and God, it feels like she's tearing him apart in the most beautiful way. 

"Anyway," she starts. "I'm glad we talked. I mean, no thanks to you but still, I'm glad we sorted that out because…" She takes a deep breath before talking, as if she were preparing herself for a fight. "Believe it or not, I actually missed you". 

It's a turning point. 

Every part of him, every desperate thought and every foolish wish, every painful beat of his fluttering heart, is rewritten by the fact that Rey did miss him, an idea he'd found impossible up until now. And yet, it's impossible _not_ to believe her now, especially when she looks at him like that – both soft and nervous, as if she were trusting him with a part of herself she had never shown the world before. 

God, he loves her. 

"I–" He gulps, feeling suddenly flushed and nervous and two seconds away from fainting. "I missed you too".

The smile that breaks out on her face is new and incredibile. It's just as bright as her usual smiles, but it looks softer, tender. Almost – almost _loving_. And he knows he should stop fooling himself and that this will only end up in heartbreak, that she's Rey and she's wonderful and he's just himself, and there's no way she'll ever feel the way he feels, he knows all of this and he can't seem to be able to stop thinking about it, but–

– but she steps in, closing the distance between the two of them, and raises to her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek, and all his thoughts go very quiet all of the sudden. 

It's soft – a barely-there touch that only lasts a few seconds, but it makes his heart jump in his chest, thundering against his ribcage as if to catch Rey's attention. Her lips are – so soft, so gentle he almost wants to cry. Her hand lingers on his arm as if to steady herself and when she steps away and gazes at him, her cheeks flushed and a somewhat sheepish look about her, she doesn't let him go. 

"Oh," he breathes out, unable to come up with anything else. 

She flashes him another glimpse of that smile. "Yeah," she murmurs, then she looks around, as if to have something else to do. "Uh, maybe– I mean– The movie probably started, we should–" 

He's quick to nod, because he doesn't know if he remembers how to do anything more complicated than that. "We should." 

He doesn't even know what he's agreeing to, at this point, but it's fine. He's pretty sure he'd agree with anything right now. 

Rey looks at him with another smile, then her hand trails down his arm. He thinks she'll let it fall away as she always does, but then – _she takes his hand_. 

God. Her fingers fit so perfectly between his own. He remembers a night at the club, when she'd taken his hand for the first time – how his heart had jumped in his throat even if he'd tried to tell himself it meant nothing, how he'd felt electric for days even thinking about it, how she'd started a revolution in his heart he wasn't prepared for in the slightest. 

"Come on, then," she tells him, tugging at his hand. When he meets her eyes, she's still blushing, but there's a surety about her that makes Ben fall in love with her all over again. 

When they finally manage to get in their seats, Poe looks at them in a suggestive way that makes him turn even more crimson and elicits a blush from Rey, too.

It doesn't matter, he thinks. 

Rey doesn't stop holding his hand through the whole movie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ben solo is a soft nerd pass it on  
>   
> also, friendly reminder that you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/akosmia) and [tumblr](http://kylorensx.tumblr.com/) ♥ i'm mostly shitposting my way through this quarantine, so don't expect anything serious from me *fingerguns*


	6. (vi)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it is, the last chapter!! i'll miss these two emotionally constipated idiots, but thank you so much for sticking with me till the end ♥ when i started this i just wanted to write a quick, short story to get into writing smut again after almost two years, but then these two kind of took over and here we are, 40k words later, just because they have the emotional intelligence of a chair and they like being idiots.
> 
> thank you for following the story, for every kudo and every comment, for sticking with me and for keeping me company during this lockdown. all your comments and reactions have been the highlight of my week in these uncertain times, so thank you so much for taking a little of your time to read this story and reach out to me, i love you all ♥
> 
> also, yes this chapter is longer than the other chapters, but these two have one braincell and they're thirsty, so here's that!

When he comes home from work the night of his birthday, he finds Rey sitting on his couch. 

It's not exactly unusual – she's here more often than not lately, with her distracting grin and that smattering of freckles he's so awfully entranced by, always ready to tease him and coax a smile out of him even on bad days when he just wants to be his grumpy self, so it doesn't really comes as a surprise to him, and yet, his heart does that little jump it always does when she's near, before settling for a steady fluttering in his chest. 

He blinks her in for a moment, standing in the doorway like the idiot he is. 

"Hey," she says when she notices him just _standing there_ , staring at her as if he had never seen her before. She flashes him one of her dimpled smiles and his heart stupidly stutters in his chest. "Are you going to stay there all night or…?" 

His skin suddenly gets hotter, a flush spreading from the tips of his ears to the edge of his neck, and he nervously clears his throat and runs a hand through his hair just to have something to do with his hands. 

"Right," he says, stepping in and closing the door behind himself, weirdly aware of his own body as he's never been before. "I– What– You–". 

Words. He knows words. He can _use_ words. It shouldn't be too hard. Nothing is _happening_ – except for the fact that Rey's here and that somehow makes a chaos of his heart and mind. 

He tries to swallow and it feels like he's swallowing his heart down too, before he settles for a pathetic, "Hi".

It should be enough to grant him a night of endless mocking from her. He half expects her to curve her lips into a teasing smile, her eyes glittering from all the possibilities, and he thinks he'd stupidly let her say anything to him as long as she _looks_ at him, but – but instead, her smile gets both softer and brighter, and he doesn't know how she does it, but he falls a little bit more in love with her like this. 

"Hi," she replies, quietly. 

Sitting like she is on his couch, cross-legged and utterly comfortable, she looks – at _home_ , which should be absurd but somehow it's not. 

It feels like she _belongs_ here – after all, she spends most of the time on this couch or in his kitchen, flashing him that smile that she seems to reserve for him only and that he doesn't know what to make of, and he's suddenly gripped by the realization of how much he wants, _craves_ this. Her. Everything – everything she's willing to give him, even if he has to settle for a lifetime of bumping into her in his kitchen. 

He clears his throat again, fully knowing he's dreaming of things he could never have, and yet he can't stop himself from _longing_ for it.. 

"Call me a dreamer," he starts, shedding his coat and resting it on the hanger. "But I like to think you have your own place". 

The way she tilts her head is so awfully familiar it takes his breath away. 

"I do," she confirms, with a shrug. "But your place is bigger and nicer. Plus–" Her voice gets softer, as if she was on the cusp of telling him a secret she hasn't shared with anyone else, and her lips curve into that gentle, loving smile he's glimpsed once before, that night at the movies. "I get to see you". 

Her words tug at his heart in a painful way and it gets harder everyday, to pretend she doesn't affect him. He wishes she were telling the truth – that she's here because of him, because she wants to _see_ him, because she actually _likes_ him – but he knows that it's just wishful thinking and he's only setting himself up for heartbreak. 

It doesn't matter – he'd let her break his heart any day. 

And _yet_ – yet, there's a voice in his mind that's getting louder lately. A voice that tells him that Rey _missed_ him when he'd stupidly tried to avoid her, that she'd kissed _his cheek_ , she'd taken _his hand_ and she's always _around_ and it has to mean _something_. 

He doesn't know how to shut that voice up. 

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure my presence is really the biggest perk this apartment has to offer," he deadpan, a self-deprecating smile on his lips as he shakes his head. Rey furrows her brows in that familiar way of hers and opens her mouth, but before she can say anything and make his insides do funny things with the way she always tries to praise him, he asks her, "Where's Poe, by the way?" 

It's the only logical explanation, he reasons with himself. She's probably here because Poe and Finn are _here_ , because why on Earth she'd be here otherwise? It's not like she wants to see _him_. 

He hopes she does. He's not been able to forget the way she had looked at him that night at the movies, telling him she had missed him, kissing his cheek, intertwining their fingers. He wants, he _dies_ for it to mean something but – but maybe it doesn't. Maybe he's just so hopelessly in love with her to fool himself into believing her words have a deeper meaning when they don't. 

He doesn't know what to believe anymore – if he's so desperate for her to love him back that he's starting to see things, or if he's stupidly missing all the cues she's been giving him for a while now. It's maddening and excruciating and yet, he loves every second of it like the idiot he is. 

She shrugs again, but the thing is – he's learned to _know_ her by now,as absurd as it sounds, and he can recognize the tension in her spine and the way she avoids his gaze, as if she were nervous. It's so uncharacteristic of her it leaves him confused, because if he's certain about one thing in this life, it's Rey and her willful attitude, the way she always faces anything straight on, determined and unflinching, a fixed point in a spinning universe. 

"You just missed him," she informs him, nodding in the direction of the door he just came in, as if it could grant him some sort of explanation. "He's on a date with Finn. He let me in and then left, about ten minutes ago". 

He blinks once, then twice, then his brows knit together in a confused frown, because if Poe is not here, that means–

He can't bring himself to even think about it, because if he's _wrong_ about this, if he _hasn't understood_ her at all, if he's letting himself _hope_ for something that isn't _true_ – he doesn't think he'll ever recover. 

Feigning nonchalance even though he's probably crimson by now, he buries his hands in the pockets of his suit's jacket and casts a glance into her direction. "Then why the hell are you here?" 

Something _shifts_ – he can feel it in the air when she looks at him again.

It's electrical, a sort of tension making itself known in the space between them, but it's not unpleasant. It's barely a moment, so brief he could have missed it, but she inhales, sharply as if to prepare herself for one of their fights, and she holds her breath in anticipation and for the first time he realizes–

– she feels it too. 

She curves her lips into that tender smile that tugs at his heart in unexpected ways and breathes out, softly, "I was waiting for you". 

There are no words to express how earth-shattering this moment is.

It rewrites his whole existence, as if the notion of Rey waiting for him had unlocked a world of meaning that was lost to him before and now – now she's sitting on his couch because of him, because she was waiting for _him_ , and he knows it probably doesn't mean what he wants it to mean and it's stupid to even get so worked up about it, but she's here because of _him_ and he can't–

– he can't believe it. He can't stop it, either – this rush of feelings right to his heart, this equal mix of longing and love and hope and desperation, something so intense it's short of painful. 

He doesn't even try to hide his shock – it flows through him at her words and he shouldn't be so surprised, not when he knows Rey likes to rip the ground off his feet at any chance she gets, and yet, he can't help it. 

"But–" His words are stuck somewhere between his brain and his lips and he can't remember how to talk, can't even remember his own _name_. The only thing he can focus on is Rey – the beauty of her dimpled smile, the way her eyes soften when her gaze lingers on him, the tenderness of her expression and God, he doesn't want to _hope_ , but he can't stop himself. It feels like everything he does lately is _hoping_. "Why?" 

The soft chuckle she lets out makes his heart twist in his chest. It's so lovely and warm and delicate and he – he _wants_ so much he feels desperate and drunk on it. 

"Because it's your birthday," she replies, quietly. 

It feels like it happens in slow-motion – she uncrosses her legs, her feet brushing against the hardwood floor, and then she stands up, her hair moving around her like a soft halo he dies to sink his hands into as she takes a tentative step into his direction. It feels like at every step she takes she destroys all the doubts in his mind, and she stops barely a few feet away from him, suddenly so close he feels like he can't breathe. 

"My– my birthday?" he manages to say, as if he weren't actually sure birthdays were a thing in the first place. 

She lets out a soft, exasperated laughter that makes what's left of his heart race helplessly in his chest. "Yes, Ben," she says, pointedly. "Your birthday". 

"Oh," he breathes out, dumbfounded. 

He hasn't cared about his birthday in _years_ and he rarely celebrates it anyway, but the idea that not only she knows when his birthday is, but that she's here because of it makes his head _spin_. 

"I know you don't really celebrate…" She scrunches up her nose in that adorable way of hers that makes him kind of weak. "Even though it makes no sense and it's probably just an excuse to look even more like an edgelord–" 

He's still present enough to remember he's supposed to be offended, even though he thinks he'd gladly let her insult the hell out of him for the rest of his life. "Is this going somewhere or are you just here to insult me on my birthday?" 

"I'm getting _there_." 

She lets out an annoyed huff of breath that seems to squeeze his heart into a forceful grip.

"As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted–" She casts an eloquent glance in his direction and his heart currently feels like it's trying its best to carve its way out of his chest. "I know you don't celebrate your birthday but I didn't want you to spend this day alone, you– you deserve to be cared for and loved and– I wanted to do _something_ for you. I– I wanted to _be_ with you, because, as surprising as it sounds, I _care_ about you and– yeah. So. Here I am".

He has to blink her in, because he can't believe she's real and she's here and this is _happening_. "But–" 

"Oh, for God's sake, Ben," she lets out, sighing, an equal mix of annoyance and tenderness in her voice. "Do I need to spell it out for you?" 

It doesn't make sense. 

It's impossible and absurd and unbelievable and yet – and yet she's here because she wanted to do something for him, because she didn't want him to spend his birthday alone, because she thinks he deserves to be _loved_ , because she _cares_ about him, because–

It's sudden and immediate.

A dam breaks inside his soul and all the feelings he'd been trying to hide until this moment start to spill out, flowing from his lips, his eyes, his skin. It's like he doesn't have the strength to fight them anymore, as if all his fight had gone out of him, and he can't do this, he can't tell himself that this – whatever _this_ is – doesn't mean anything, because she looks at him like _that_ , holding her breath, waiting for him do to _something_ and he loves her, he loves her as if his heart was made for this purpose alone. 

He doesn't realize he's walking, crossing the distance between them, until he's right in front of her, her eyes fixed on him and her lips parted in surprise, her breath stuck in her throat, and then he takes her face into his hands and–

– he kisses her. 

The moment before she kisses him back is the most excruciating instant of his life, and it feels like it lasts a few centuries, but then – but then she _gasps_ against his mouth and brings her arms around him and _kisses_ him and Ben's heart _soars_. 

It's bruising and desperate and _hungry_ , as if all the pent-up feelings he has wrestled with until now had finally found an outlet and it's even better than he'd imagined, because she's _real_ , she's here, tangling her hands into his hair and tugging at it to bring him even closer, gasping so sweetly against his mouth and pressing her body into his. Her lips are soft, softer than he'd imagined, but unrelenting when she kisses him back, just as needy and hungry as he is, and when she gently bites down on his bottom lip he lets out a soft whimper, melting into her arms. 

When he pulls away, he rests his forehead against hers, taking advantage of this moment to look at the pattern of her freckles scattered on her face. They're both breathing heavily, her breath ghosting over his lips, but she smiles at him and every lingering doubt disappears. 

"Wow," she says, grinning so wildly he thinks he could get drunk on it. On the way she smiles. She's radiant – as if her usual brightness had been heightened, as if she were made of _stars_.

"Was–" He takes a deep breath, his lips curving into a smile out of their own accord. "Was that okay?" 

She lets out a soft chuckle, her hands still threading through his hair while she gives him an exasperated look. 

"Honestly, Ben. Do you even have to ask?" she asks him, then laughs again, and oh. _Oh_. The way she _shakes_ against him – he thinks he'll never be able to forget it. "I've been trying to kiss you ever since the night of the concert but you were busy being _yourself_ and I thought you didn't feel the same way. I thought you were trying to reject me nicely". 

Oh. Oh, _that's_ what was happening that night. _Oh_.

"Oh," he breathes out, pretty stupidly if he's being honest, but he can't be blamed right now, can he? It's not like his brain is actually _working_ at the moment, which is probably why he ends up blurting, "I didn't understand– God, _no_. Rey, God. I'd never– I wanted to kiss you so _badly_ that night". 

She blinks at him, as if to make sense of his words, and she frowns in confusion. "But you acted like that and then started to avoid me when we came back to Coruscant–" 

His cheeks feel on fire, but he doesn't let go of her. He doesn't think he ever will. "Because I thought you had realized how I felt towards you and how you were affecting me and I had made a fool of myself," he explains, then, offering her a sheepish smile. 

Her lips part, but no sound comes out of it. It brings no satisfaction, the fact that he rendered her speechless again, because apparently he only manages to shut her up when he's being a colossal _idiot_ , which is not something he cherishes. 

" _Ben_ ," she says, in the end. She whispers his name the way she usually does, fondness and exasperation mixed together into something that makes his heart flutter and it's with a pang of surprise that he realizes he doesn't have to hide the way she affects him anymore, that he doesn't have to worry she'll hear his rapid heartbeat pressed against hers. "Ben, you're an _idiot_ ". 

It's not like he doesn't agree with her – he's probably the biggest idiot this world has to offer and he's acutely aware of it, thank you very much. But it's almost like an instinct, to bicker with her, as if spinning together in a dance known to them only, so he raises his eyebrows and tells her, "Well, you could have said _something_ ". 

It's so utterly familiar, so devastatingly _intimate_ – as if they had spent their whole life like this, holding onto each other and bickering pointless over who's the bigger idiot in this situation. He thinks he could spend the rest of his life like this and be perfectly happy.

"What?" She raises her eyebrows too in a familiar expression and it feels almost like coming home, the way she replies. "I did! I basically told you that I _liked_ you. What more could I have said?" 

"I don't know, something more _explicit_ that would have saved us weeks of emotional suffering, perhaps". 

"Oh my God," she breathes out, tugging at his hair. "More _explicit_? Ben, you're such an oblivious idiot, I can't belie–" 

Despite how much he likes fighting with her, he decides he enjoys way more kissing her, and her words die on his lips when he's suddenly gripped by a surge of boldness and he leans in to do just that.

This time, it's slower. There's something _deeper_ , something that coils in his stomach, a tension that makes itself known when she tugs at his hair again and he lets out a moan against her lips. She drinks his sounds almost eagerly, as if there was nothing in this world more precious to her than the little, soft sighs he breathes out against her mouth every time she threads her fingers through his hair in slow movements. Her tongue slides against his, eliciting a shiver out of him, and when her hands slowly glide down, sneaking beneath his jacket to explore his shirt-covered chest, he can't help the way his body reacts.

He wants this so badly he almost feels _drunk_ on it, as if her closeness were intoxicating. Both of his hands fall down to her hips to bring her closer, and his fingers start to toy with the hem of her sweater, slipping beneath it, relishing in the way she gasps against his mouth when his palm brushes against the soft skin of her lower back. 

"You're still an idiot," she murmurs when she breaks away, her breath hot against his face. "I mean, you're incredible and nice and everything, but still. An idiot".

"Agreed," he replies. He busies himself by planting kisses on the corner of her mouth, the underside of her jaw, the soft spot beneath her ear that, apparently, makes her tremble in his embrace. The little appreciative sounds she makes – a soft hum coming from her throat – make his head spin. 

Her hands come to tug at the lapels of his jacket to catch his attention, persistent as always. "Bedroom?"

He never knew a word could sound so good, but she whispers it between frantic kisses on his lips, her voice low and rough, and it suddenly becomes his favorite word ever. He nods, letting her push him backwards towards his own bedroom, alternating a kiss every few steps. 

It's a messy, distracting affair – they almost fall over at least two times, unable to pull away from each other, and by the time they reach his door, she has pushed the jacket of his suit off his shoulders, letting it fall to the ground with a soft rustle. 

"We shouldn't–" he tries to say, but it's really hard to concentrate when the girl he's been dreaming about for way too long is tugging him down to kiss his lips, his jaw, anything she can reach, her lips soft and hot against his skin, everything he's imagined and _more_. He tries all the same, which should be a testament to his stubbornness. "We shouldn't leave clothes around– Poe–" 

"I asked him to stay with Finn tonight," she replies, easily, against his mouth, and oh. He quickly forgets what they were talking about because her tongue is doing _things_ to his mouth and _oh_.

She reaches for something behind him and before he realizes, they're tumbling backward into his room and she's shutting the door behind them. It's a blur – he barely pays attetion to what's happening, his senses focused only on her. She pushes him down on his bed and he falls on the mattress with no complaints, watching her with rapt attention. 

Her hair is a mess and her lips are red and swollen, her eyes almost dark with want, but she's never looked more _beautiful_ and a shiver runs through him when she brings her hands down to the hem of her sweater and steps away from him just enough so she can pull it over her head and let it fall down to the floor and–

Oh. 

_Oh_. 

Her lips are curved into a mischievous smirk that does _things_ to him, when she speaks. "You like it?"

He gulps. His mouth opens with no input from him, but not a word comes out of it, because he doesn't think he even remembers how to function, let alone speak. What he manages to let out, without even meaning to, is a _groan_ , because here she is, clad in the flimsiest piece of black lace he's ever seen and she looks _beautiful_. 

Her skin looks just as creamy and soft as the rest of her, almost pale against the black lace, and – _fuck_ , she has freckles there too, on the outline of her breasts, on her collarbones, on her shoulders. He wants, no, he _dies_ to kiss all of them and if he weren't hard already, he'd be now. 

"I–" he tries to say, but no words could ever describe how much he _likes_ it, how fucking beautiful she is, how much she's making him lose his mind just by being there, freckles and dimples and that brightness about her that makes his chest go awfully tight. "You're _beautiful_. Rey, I– Please, please–" 

He doesn't know what he's begging her for, but she seems to do, because her smile gets softer somehow and then she comes to straddle him, her arms around his neck, her thighs bracketing him, her lips pressed against his own as she kisses him again and again and again, slowly but surely, as if they had all the time in the world.

She slowly rolls her hips against his and a gasp is torn out of him when her center brushes against his cock, even with all the layers still between them. 

His lips trail down, pressing open-mouthed kisses to the column of her throat, her collarbones, the outline of her breasts, eliciting a string of soft gasps from her. Every kiss is punctuated by a gentle roll of her hips, enough to make him groan against her skin as he explores her. He nips at the underside of her jaw when she throws her head back and soothes the bruise with a soft kiss, his hands trailing down, brushing against her lace-covered breasts as if to worship her. 

He barely realizes he's doing it – but then his fingers come to brush against the freckles on the outline of her breasts and he starts mouthing at them, as if to count them, pressing a soft kiss on every little one. 

There are _so many_ of them – he could get lost in the constellations that mark her skin. 

Rey must notice, because she lets out a soft chuckle. "What are you doing?"

He sees no point in lying now. "Kissing your freckles," he murmurs, against her skin, his voice low and rough. He stares up at her, his lips lingering on her chest when he adds, "You have so many of them". 

The lovely flush on her cheeks slowly spreads from her face to the edge of her neck and she looks so – _beautiful_. He can feel her skin heat up underneath his lips and she lets out a soft moan when he punctuates his words with another kiss and a slow, gentle roll of his hips. 

"Oh. Is it–" Her voice is low and broken, when she grinds down on him and Ben is sure he's never going to forget the way she sounds when she moans _._ "Is it a bad thing? The fact that I have so many freckles?"

Her words are accompanied by a smile that looks way too soft and tender for the way she's moving above him, but Ben doesn't complain – he just trails down, following the curve of her breast with his lips, mouthing at her skin even above the flimsy layer of her bra. 

"No," he replies. His teeth graze slightly at her skin and she lets out a whimpering sound that has him in shambles. It takes all his self-control not to buck up into her. "I love them".

Before she can tease him about it – about being corny and sappy and utterly _himself_ –, he closes his mouth around her nipple through the thin fabric of her lacy bra and she lets out a keening noise, the rhythm of her hips getting a little bit more frantic, as if she was searching for the friction she desperately needs. 

"Ben–" she pants, her voice uneven, almost _rough_. It makes his stomach knot and it travels straight to his cock, trapped in the confinement of his suit. One of her hands sinks into his hair, bringing him closer, while the other claws at his shirt, her nails sinking into his shoulder even with the layer standing between her and his skin. " _Fuck_ , this– this needs to go".

It takes him a moment to realize she's talking about his shirt and he pulls away from her only when she starts to tug at it, both of her hands flying to its buttons. She's _eager_ , her fingers almost trembling from it. 

"Wait–" he tries to say, as she determinedly tugs the shirt free from his trousers and starts working the buttons open. "Let me help you–" 

"These stupid _suits_ ," she murmurs against his mouth, claiming his lips into another bruising kiss. It's sloppy and messy but he doesn't care, because she's still rocking her hips above him and she's undressing him and she's beautiful and he doesn't think he could ever want anything else. "I've thought about ripping them off you for _ages_ ".

This surprises him. 

He pulls away enough to look into her eyes, breathing heavily against her lips and staring up at her as if the answers were written on the freckles on the bridge of her nose. "You have?" 

She tilts her head to the side as she always does when she thinks he's being ridiculous. 

" _Yes_ ," she says, pointedly, accompanying the word with a sharp roll of her hips. 

His cock twitches and he lets out a groan, throwing his head back. She takes advantage of this moment to work up a bruise on the underside of his jaw. 

"The first time we met– you were so beautiful, I–" She gasps against his mouth as he bucks up into her. "I thought about gripping you by that stupid tie you used to wear when you worked for the First Order and having my way with you right there on the couch. And then before I could even introduce myself and maybe ask you out or _something_ , you decided to act like an asshole". 

_Oh_. 

"Oh," he says, eloquently as always.

His hands come to rest on her jeans-covered thighs as she works the last two buttons of his shirt open, and he's suddenly reminded of the night they met – when he'd come home to find her sitting on his couch with Finn and Poe, looking so _beautiful_ and _breathtaking_ in her faded jeans and oversize hoodie that he'd wanted to ask her out right there, in the middle of his living room without even knowing her _name_. He'd swallowed and tried his best to work up the courage to introduce himself and maybe ask her out for coffee, and then – then, she had looked at him and inhaled, sharply, because of course she'd be repulsed by him and his flight-or-fight instinct had kicked in and he had started being a jerk and– 

" _Oh_ ," he murmurs again, when he finally realizes. "That's what you were thinking about?" 

She raises her eyes from the shirt just to look at him, a confused frown on her face. She must sense that he's not trying to tease her, because she stops the motion of her hips and brings one hand to his face, her thumb gently stroking his cheekbone as if smoothing down his skin. 

"Ben," she murmurs, softly, pressing a kiss to the wrinkle in the middle of his eyebrows. "What did you think I was thinking about?" 

He's suddenly aware of how ridiculous he is and he feels weirdly on fire, as if his skin had started to radiate the energy of a thousand suns. He must be _crimson_. 

"I thought–" he starts, his hands lingering on her thighs as if afraid of letting her go. He looks away from her eyes but it's not like staring at her breasts is granting him any sort of help, so he just gulps and raises his eyes again. Rey is staring at him expectantly, her gaze gentle and encouraging, so he just says it. "I just assumed you were kind of horrified by me". 

Her surprise is a living thing, echoing in his bedroom. She opens her mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. " _What_?" she manages to say, as her eyebrows rise dangerously high on her forehead. "Why would I ever be _horrified_ by you?" 

It's not exactly easy to shrug dismissively when she's still straddling him and she's holding him like this, but the instinct is ingrained in his body and somehow he manages even this time. He'd compliment himself, if he weren't so busy mentally kicking himself for being the biggest idiot on this planet.

"I know I'm kind of weird looking–" 

"Beautiful, you mean," she says, tugging at his hair, pressing her lips together in a pout as if personally offended by his words. 

He can't help that little breathless laughter that escapes his lips, even if his cock twitches in his trousers at her words. 

"Weird looking," he repeats, making her scrunch her nose. "I got teased and mocked a lot because of it and even now– I mean, I know I'm not–" He gestures vaguely, as if to point out that _he's not_. Rey stares at him in disbelief, as if he was muttering nonsense. "Well, I thought you were repulsed by me because you kept looking at me like that–" 

She cups his face in both of her hands and presses their forehead together, letting out a deep sigh. "Because I wanted to kiss you senseless, you idiot".

It's still hard to believe it – it's hard to believe it even now, when she's half-naked on top of him and slowly canting her hips against his, kissing him so deeply and slowly and sweetly after telling him she cares about him. It feels like some part of him still hasn't caught up with reality. 

"Yeah," he breathes out, disbelief clearly audible in his voice. His lips curve into a tentative smile, way too soft for the situation they're in right now, but she doesn't seem to mind. In fact, her fingers come to brush against his dimples, as if studying them, and the matching smile on her lips makes his heart flutter. "I know that _now_. Back then, I just sort of… assumed the worst". 

She laughs again – a quiet little thing that makes his insides do funny things – before surging forward to kiss him.

It's – _different_. 

It's slow and soft and tender – her arms come to wrap around his shoulders, tugging him closer, and she stops grinding down on him, focusing only on the kiss. Her fingers play with the hair at the nape of his neck and he lets her do this, humming happily in her mouth, his hands resting on her thighs as if to hold her against him. At some point, she starts to smile into the kiss and he thinks his heart definitely gives up at that. It almost feels like she's trying to reassure him, pouring into this kiss every little thing she can't say out loud, rewriting his thoughts and changing him. 

It feels almost solemn, in a domestic way. 

"You're perfect," she murmurs on his lips when she breaks away. She trails down, pressing worshipful little kisses to his jaw, the column of his throat, everywhere she can reach without scrambling off him, eliciting small wrecked sounds from him anytime her lips brush against his skin. Her hands find the fabric of his shirt again and she finally pushes it off his shoulders, letting it join her sweater on the ground. "You're so fucking _perfect_ , I can't believe you honestly thought–" 

She stops all of the sudden, pulling away from his skin just to _look_ at him, jaw slack and eyes wide. He wonders what he's done this time. He hasn't even said _anything_.

"Oh my God–" She brings her hands to his face again, her fingers sinking into his hair, tilting his head backward so she can better look at him. He feels awfully exposed like this, but he lets her do it, because he thinks he'd do anything for her. "Oh my God, _Ben_. Is this why you opened your mouth and started to act like an asshole the night we met? Because you thought I was going to _mock_ you?" 

The heat radiating from his face should be enough to warm up a small town for the whole winter. He wants to look away but he can't, because Rey is still holding his face and is staring at him like _that,_ so he just lets out a frustrated groan. 

"I guess," he says, sheepishly. He shrugs again. "It just sort of happened. Also I think I actually _am_ an asshole, so…" 

She tilts her head to the side again, a little exasperated smile on her lips, while her fingers trace the shell of his ear, slowly, eliciting shivers from him. 

"Stop it," she murmurs, softly. "I won't let you say awful things about yourself. I thought we had made it clear that you're good". 

He can't help it – it's like his body reacts without him meaning to, and his cock _twitches_ as he instinctively bucks up into her. A whimper slips past his lips, its echo reverberating around them, and he throws his head back, his breath heavy and rough. 

Rey notices, of course. She suddenly goes very still and looks at him as if seeing him for the first time.

" _Oh_ ". 

He wants to _disappear_. Before she can say anything, he hides his face into the crook of her neck, whispering against her skin, "God, this is humiliating– I'm sorry, I–". 

Her answer is a soft sigh and then her lips come to brush against his temple as her fingers thread through his hair in gentle, soothing movements. It's surprisingly tender, which is not how he pictured this to go – and yet, he can't find it in himself to complain. He feels – almost cared for, which is new, but also so _wonderful_.

"What are you apologizing for?" she asks him, then, gently pulling away from him to look him in the eyes. Her hand comes to cup his jaw and her fingers trace the lines of his face – the sharp line of his nose, the cutting edge of his cheekbones, the dip where his dimples appear when he smiles. "Are you sorry because you like to be told that you're _good_?" 

He can't stop it – he groans and rolls his hips again, needy and desperate and a part of him wants to beg her to stop this, this kind of slow torture that has him in shambles, while the rest of him just wants her to keep praising him, to tell him he's good, to tell him he's being so good for her, so _perfect_. 

"Rey–" he manages to breath out. His cock is so hard it hurts and he _needs_ her, so badly he thinks he's going to _die_ if she doesn't do _something_. "I– Please–" 

If he's begging her to stop or to keep going, he doesn't know and he's not sure he even wants to know, but she seems to understand him because she smiles at him and pushes a few strands of hair out of his face, so gently it makes him shiver. 

"There's nothing to be ashamed of, Ben." She bends down to press a kiss to his lips, his cheek, the place where his jaw meets his neck. Her hands start to trail down, skimming over his naked chest, her fingertips barely brushing against his skin. He lets out a whine, aching to _feel_ her. "I like it, too. I like that you're so _good_. So perfect for me. So _beautiful_ ". 

Every little praise makes his body sing and reduces his mind to a series of incoherent moans. He throws his head back at her words, letting out a noise he didn't think he was capable of and Rey presses a kiss to his throat, her teeth gently scraping his skin. 

She pushes him down on the bed and he follows her lead, his back hitting the mattress with a soft thud while she starts to make her way down, slowly. She leaves a trail of kisses from his neck to his collarbones, nipping at the soft skin there and soothing the bruises with her tongue and her mouth. 

He fists at the sheets of his bed, his breath coming in short pants now. 

"Look at _you_ ," she whispers, as she slides down his body to press kisses to his chest, his abdomen, his ribs, eliciting a string of soft noises from him. "Being so good for me. So patient. So eager for anything I give you. You look so beautiful like this, sweetheart". 

The fucking _endearment_. He thinks he's going to lose his mind and it will be her fault, because she keeps talking like _that_ and calling him _sweetheart_ and he's going to come so soon it's going to be embarrassing but God–

He likes it. He wants her to call him sweetheart for the rest of his _life_. 

She laughs against his abdomen when he lets out another whimper. "You like that? You like being called sweetheart?" 

He doesn't even have it in him to fight it and he just nods, eager to hear the endearment again. " _Yes_ ," he pants, broken and desperate. "Yes, I–" 

All the words die on his lips when she slides further down and presses a kiss to his cock, still covered by his slacks. He doesn't even know if he makes a noise – everything blurs and the only thing he can focus on is Rey, the way she _touches_ him, the things she _says_. 

"So pretty like this," she murmurs, as she palms his cock through his trousers. He whines, a high-pitched sound that seems almost out of place on his lips. "I spent so many nights thinking about this. About you. How you'd moan for me. How you'd feel against me. How beautiful you'd be as I _wrecked_ you". 

Her hands come to work at his belt, and then the next thing he knows is Rey, pushing his trousers and his boxer briefs down his legs, letting them pool on the floor with the rest of their clothes. His cock is hard, jutting between his thighs and already leaking and he _needs_ her so badly he's on the verge of crying. 

And then, before he realizes what is happening, she sinks to the floor and kneels between his legs. 

"Rey–" he tries to push the words out through the haze of his mind, even if it seems like an impossible task right now. He raises his head to look at her, and God – the _things_ the image of Rey kneeling between his legs does to him. "What are you– You don't have to–" 

She shushes him by running her hands up and down his thighs, his skin flushed hot against hers. "I want to make you feel good," she tells him, her lips curved into a soft smile that makes his heart twist in his chest. "Is it okay?" 

The things she _asks_ him. She could do anything to him right now and it would be _okay_. 

He's quick to nod, all his muscles tensing in anticipation. "Please, I–" he tries to say. "I need you so badly, please, _please–_ " 

"Shhh, I know, it's alright," she soothes him. She presses a soft kiss on the inside of his thigh, then smiles up at him. "I've got you, sweetheart. I've got you". 

The first touch of her hand around his aching cook is – _God_ , it feels like some kind of electricity is running through his veins, his body melting underneath her touch. He moans, or at least he thinks he does – he forgets everything else by the time she starts stroking him, her little hand moving in slow, careful movements. 

"You're so beautiful," she keeps murmuring, her voice so soft, a stark contrast to the things she's doing to him. "So _good_. I can't believe you're letting me do this. I've dreamed about this, about _you_ , for so long, but this– This is better than I had imagined. You're better than any dream I've ever had. You're doing so well, sweetheart".

There are tears at the corner of his eyes, but he doesn't care. The only thing he can focus on is the moment Rey bends down and starts to lick him, slowly, oh so _slowly_ , her tongue lapping his pre-come, swirling over his head, teasing him, turning his body liquid. She murmurs little praises between licks – telling him how good he's being, how perfect and beautiful he is, how much she's dreamed about this, how his cock is the prettiest cock she's ever seen and she can't wait to have him inside her – before she smiles up at him and finally, finally closes her mouth around him. 

Oh. 

_Oh_. 

It's heaven. It's hell. It's everything in between and _more_ and he thinks he's going to die or he's already dead and he's not even aware of it – it doesn't matter. It feels like exploding, like something is buzzing just beneath his skin, like stars collapsing in his veins and – it feels so _good_ his body seems to be too small to contain it.

He's barely aware of the sounds tumbling out of his mouth – he doesn't know if he's cursing or begging her or saying anything at all, if he's making sense or if he's just letting out a string of incoherent moans, and he doesn't even care. His hands fists his sheets, clenching so hard his bones hurt but it doesn't matter. All that matters is Rey, her mouth, her hand closed around him, the way she hollows her cheeks and _hums_. 

She works him slowly, as if to let him adjust to it – and then she starts to bob her head, her hand stroking what she can't fit into her mouth, her eyes never leaving his as she works him and this–

– this is going to end way too soon, Ben realizes. 

"Rey–" he pants. She hums around him, her eyes searching for his as she looks up, and he nearly loses it, throwing his head back. The familiar tension grips him, his muscles going rigid and he has to force the next few words out, fighting off his orgasm. "Rey, stop–" 

She pulls away from him with a wet pop that should be obscene, but that he finds almost _endearing_ , of all things. 

Her brows are furrowed together, confusion easy to read on her face. "Everything alright?" 

He nods, taking a deep breath to steady himself. His heart is beating erratically against his chest, a sound so loud she can probably hear it. 

"Yeah, you– _fuck_ , you're amazing," he tells her, eliciting a soft smile from her, which, despite it all, feels oddly right. "I just– if you keep doing that– I'm going to come". 

She lets out a little breathless laugh. "I know you must be a little bit dazed right now," she starts, as her hand comes to stroke his thigh, dangerously close to his cock and yet not touching him – a slow, languid torture that turns his body liquid and makes him forget he's asked her to stop in the first place. "But that would be the point". 

He can't help the chuckle that escapes his lips, and Rey looks at him – God, she looks at him like he hung the moon. Has she always looked at him like this? 

His hand comes to brush a few strands of hair away from her face and then he cups her cheeks, stroking her cheekbone and oh. She _nuzzles_ into his palm, so _tenderly_. 

"I know, but I want to make you feel good too," he murmurs, in the end, as his thumb comes to trace the line of her lips. The way she _exhales_. The way she _trembles_. He still can't believe she wants this. _Him_. "Please? I'll be so good, I promise, I'll do anything, please, _please–_ " 

She doesn't even let him finish. 

Before he can beg her _again_ , dignity be damned, she's scrambled off the floor and climbed into his lap and then she's kissing him, cupping his face, making them tumble backward on the mattress by the sheer force of her enthusiasm. He can feel the heat of her through her jeans when she rubs against his cook and he whimpers in the kiss, his hands flying to her hips, her thighs, anywhere he can reach to pull her _closer_.

"You're still wearing too many clothes," he groans against her mouth and she has the audacity to _giggle_ , before bringing her hands to her back and unhooking her bra, letting it fall to the ground. 

"Better?" she asks him, her lips curved in a smirk he knows too well. 

He surges forward to kiss her again, just to shut her up. 

His hands come to palm at her breasts, brushing his thumbs against her nipples and eliciting soft moans from her, as she keeps on rocking above him. He mouths at every inch of skin he can reach, nuzzling his nose against the freckles he's so obsessed with, and she lets out a chuckle when she notices what he's doing. 

"Oh," she says, softly, her hands sinking into his hair. "You have a _kink_ ".

He groans against her skin. "Shut _up_ ".

She laughs, but it quickly morphs into a breathless moan when one of his hands slides down and unbuttons her jeans, his fingers slipping beneath the waistband to stroke her hot center through the fabric of her underwear. Her panties are _soaked_ and it makes his head spin.

"You're _wet_ ," he breathes out against her collarbone, pressing a kiss there.

Rey rocks her hips against his hand in response, as if to ask him for more and he obliges, or at least he tries. It's a bit of an awkward angle – her jeans are too tight to allow him room for any movement and he barely manages to slide his fingers into her panties, circling her clit slowly, drawing small wrecked sounds from her. 

"So _good_ ," she pants above him, her eyes screwed shut, her lips parted in a soundless moan. "You're so good for me, fuck, Ben–" 

His cock, trapped as it is between the two of them, twitches again and she _whimpers_ and he almost loses his mind. One of his fingers slides down to her entrance, but it's impossible to do anything with her clothes in the way, blocking him. 

He groans, frustrated. He removes his hands from her panties, eliciting a high-pitched whine from her that he never thought she could make, and rises from the mattress to start tugging at her jeans.

It's, well, _difficult_ – she's still straddling him, her thighs on either side of him, but then she seems to understand what he's trying to do, because she gets up and slides both her jeans and her underwear – a piece of black lace that seems to match her bra, even though he barely has the time to see it – down her long, beautiful, freckled legs, before she climbs on the bed again. 

She's – fuck, she's _perfect_. She's beautiful and incredible and he's so in love with her his chest seems to burn from it, as if his heart had burned a hole through his ribcage. 

"You're beautiful," he murmurs, then, as she straddles him again. 

" _You_ are beautiful," she replies, then, taking his face into her hands and surging forward to press a gentle kiss to his lips, as if they weren't naked and writhing against each other and they had all the time in the world.

He lets out a huff of breath that could pass for an exasperated laughter, but she kisses him again, softly, then stares at him with her usual stubborn expression, her brows furrowed together.

"Stop it," she whispers. "I won't let you be mean to yourself– _oh_ ". 

Her words die on her lips when he starts to stroke her again. His fingers come to tease her clit, slowly, before venturing lower, circling her entrance. She's so, so wet – it takes him by surprise, to realize how much she wants him. It's like he still can't believe it, but it must be true, because she bucks against his hand, her face scrunched up in concentration, her hands gripping his shoulders so hard he idly wonders if he'll have bruises in the morning.

Not that he minds. 

"Fuck, Ben–" she gasps. He loves every little sound that comes out of her mouth, but he thinks he loves the best the way she says his name. 

He slowly eases one finger into her and he's rewarded by the moan she breathes out against his shoulder, when she lets her head fall forward. She's so wet and worked up that he manages to add another finger with ease, her body trembling from it as she rocks above him, as he crooks her fingers to hit that sweet spot inside her that makes her cry out. She keeps muttering things against his shoulder – she calls his name, tells him how good this is, how perfect he is for her, how long she's waited for this – and he thinks, this is Heaven. 

When she comes, her body shakes with the force of it and she muffles her moans and whimpers against his skin, her hands clawing at his shoulders, and he loves every second of it.

A few minutes pass like this, with him holding her in his arms and dropping kisses to her temple, running his hand up and down her spine soothingly, until her body stops trembling and her breaths evens out, and it's so – so sweet, so easy. She fits so perfectly into his arms he wonders how they hadn't realized it before.

"I need you–" she says, then, when she catches her breath, raising her head just enough to press an uncoordinated little kiss to the corner of his mouth. "Ben, I need you inside of me, please–" 

He can't believe she's begging him. It feels almost wrong – in his mind, he should pray her for a chance to be inside her, to fuck her, to _love_ her. Instead, she rocks above him, almost delirious, and she begs _him_ , and who is he to deny her? He'd do anything she asked of him, especially when she says his name like that. 

He removes his fingers from her and she understands him immediately – she angles her hips and he grips his cock and–

Then, the thought finally occurs to him. 

"Fuck, I don't have a condom," he tells her, as he raises his eyes to meet hers. An incredulous laugh slips past his lips despite his utter frustration at the situation they're in, eliciting a confused expression from her. "Believe me or not, but this is not how I thought I'd end up spending my birthday". 

Her shoulders shake when she laughs and it makes his heart go tight in his chest in the best way. Then, she leans in, kissing him softly. 

"I'm on the pill," she murmurs against his lips, almost hesitant. There's a flush to her cheeks that wasn't there before and that makes his heart thunder. "And I'm clean– I mean– I haven't been with anyone since I met you". 

He has to grip the base of his cock because it's suddenly _too much_. He can't believe it – he can't believe Rey has been waiting for this for so long and he's been an _idiot_ this whole time. 

The only reasonable response his mind is able to process at the moment is to lean in and kiss her senseless. She gasps against his mouth and lets out a breathless little laughter and God, he loves it. He wants her to laugh into his kiss for the rest of his life.

"I'm clean, too," he manages to utter, planting kisses on her cheeks, her neck, her lips. Then, he searches for her gaze, when he adds, "There's never been anyone else since the night I met you". 

There's something in the back of her eyes – something he's almost afraid to name, too terrified of being wrong. And yet, she surges forward again, kissing him so tenderly it almost breaks his heart, only to put it together again. No one has ever treated him like this – like he's something precious and wonderful and _worth it_ and he can't help the little whimper that escapes his mouth, because being _wanted_ feels so new and raw and impossible, but Rey eases him into it, holding him through it as she's held him as he dived deep into his feelings.

When she breaks away, she rests her forehead against his and smiles at him – that tender, loving smile he's glimpsed before. His face breaks in a grin at the sight – it's crooked and boyish and terrible, but he doesn't care because Rey looks at him like _that_ , like the universe exists just because of him.

She's still looking at him like that, by the time she sinks down onto him.

Her hands are resting on his shoulders, gripping his muscles for support, and he's holding her hips, guiding her down as she takes him inch by tortuous inch. The sight of his cock disappearing into her makes him dizzy but he barely notices, his eyes focused on Rey's face – the way her mouth falls open as he slowly pushes in, the moment she has to give up and close her eyes as if overwhelmed by pleasure, her brows furrowed in concentration. The gasps and the moans falling from her lips. 

It's life-changing, this moment. 

He stifles his groans against her skin when he finally bottoms out, so _deep_ inside of her. She's _wet_ and _hot_ and _tight_ and _perfect_ and he stays like this for a moment, his hands holding her hips, his head buried in the crook of her neck, just to give her a moment to adjust to everything and also to prolong this moment of pure perfection. 

"You alright?" he asks her, then, pressing a gentle kiss to her throat. 

Rey nods, her hands still gripping his shoulders. "Yeah, I just–" she pants. "I just need a moment". 

His thumbs rub soothing circles on her hipbones and he peppers her skin with little kisses, trailing down from her neck to the edge of her chest, following the lines of her freckles. It's hard to concentrate and resist the urge to start moving his hips, especially when she's so _tight_ around him, but he waits for her, murmuring sweet nothings into her skin as if to reassure her. 

It's Rey who starts moving.

She experimentally rocks her hips, a shallow move at first and Ben throws his head back because the drag of it – God, it feels _amazing_. A few sounds come tumbling out of his mouth but he barely realizes – the only thing he can think about is Rey, the way she moves, the slow roll of her hips against him, the sounds she makes, the things she says. 

"You feel so good," she whispers, one hand coming to tug at his hair to catch his attention. He complies with a groan and she slants her lips over his, breathing heavily against his mouth as she rocks her hips. It's not really a kiss – more like an uncoordinated pressing of mouths, but it's wonderful and perfect and Ben loves it. "I'm so _full_ right now, fuck, Ben–" 

Her walls clench around him and he feels a familiar tension at the base of his spine, his body tingling from anticipation. She feels so _good_ – she's so tight around him and the way she moves is enough to send him spiraling, already so close to coming. He tries to hold it off, gritting his teeth, gripping her hips more tightly in his hands. He tentatively bucks up his hips and she lets out a keening sound, her nails sinking into his shoulders. 

"Rey," he pants, her name like a prayer on his lips. "Rey, I–" 

The words die on his lips after a particularly sharp thrust. He's so _deep_ and she's so _perfect_ , everything he's dreamed of, everything he has not allowed himself to think he could have. She lets her head fall down on his shoulders and whimpers so beautifully against his skin as he keeps guiding her onto him and she meets his thrusts, just as eager as him. 

"You're so perfect, _oh_ – it feels like you were made for me–" she whispers in his ear, softly, while the rhythm of her hips gets more frantic, a contradiction that makes him see stars. One of his hands comes to squeeze her breast and roll her nipple between his fingers, drawing a string of moans that makes his head turn. "You're so good, so perfect for me, I never want to let you go–"

"Then don't," he tells her, as he picks up his pace, thrusting erratically into her. He's not even aware of what he's saying – he just wants this to last forever, wants Rey to know how much he loves this, how much he loves _her_. "I don't want you to let me go". 

She raises her head from his shoulder only to cup his face into her hands and kiss him. This time, it's bruising and desperate and messy – she pants into the kiss and he does too, his breath coming heavy and rough, his heart hammering in his chest. 

"I'm close," she whispers, her face so close to his that he can count all the freckles on her nose, on her forehead. A thin layer of sweat glistens in the crook of her neck and the dip of her collarbones, her flush spreading from her cheeks to the edge of her chest. She's _beautiful_. "I'm so _close_. Can you be good for me and make me come? Can you touch me? Please, sweetheart–"

He doesn't need to be told twice – it's like he can't help but do as she asks, and so his hand trails down, coming to thumb her clit. He teases her for just a moment, drawing small, lazy circles, but then he's quickly overwhelmed, the tension at the base of his spine making itself known, and he starts to quicken his pace. He thrusts almost frantically into her and groans against the skin of her collarbones and he's so _deep_ and she's so _perfect_ , he wants this moment to last forever. 

"Yes, just like that–" she breathes out, her words hot against his skin, as if they were burning a layer through him. "You're so good, I knew you'd be so, so good–"

She's incoherent now and he knows she's close to coming by the way she clenches around him, her walls fluttering around his cock. He's not far behind, a tension coiling deep into his stomach and he doesn't even remember his name or where he is – the only thing he can think about is Rey, sinking her nails into his skin, feverish and needy above him, telling him he's _good_. He thumbs her clit frantically. 

"Fuck, I'm going to–" 

She comes with a moan, her whole body going rigid into his arms as her walls clamp around him and it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Her skin is flushed and sweaty, her hair is a mess from all the times he's run his hand through those strands, her face scrunched up in pleasure and yet – she's _perfect_. 

She collapses against him after she rides out her orgasm, limp and sated and utterly blissed out, hiding her face into his shoulder and holding onto him as if determined to never let him go. He's still thrusting into her and she moans softly against his skin every time he slides in, her fingers threading gently through his hair, her lips planting tender kisses everywhere she can reach. It's – sweet, almost. 

"Come for me," she whispers into his ear. There's such a tenderness in her voice that he's pretty sure he's on the verge of crying again, and maybe she knows and that's why she adds, softly, "It's alright, Ben. Be good and come for me, sweetheart".

That does it. He trusts a few times more, gripping her hips, and then he goes rigid, pulsing inside her as he comes. His world shatters around him, lights dancing beneath his eyelids, and it feels like flying and falling at the same time. She holds him through it, pulling away from him just to cup his face into her hands and wipe the tears he feels on his skin, pressing feather-light kisses to his cheeks, his forehead, the corner of his mouth and for the first time – he feels _loved_. 

There's a lightness in his chest that bubbles up, and he can't help the dopey grin on his face, when he comes back to himself, breathing heavily. Rey is looking at him with the same smile on her lips, and it's so bright and sweet he thinks he'd be happy to look at her for the rest of his life. She wipes away the last, lingering tears, but she mercifully doesn't comment on that – she just looks at him as if she _knew_ , and Ben thinks she does.

He clears his throat, not knowing what to say. There's so much he wants to tell her, so much he wants to _ask_ her, a whole world of _why_ and _because_ on the tip of his tongue, but when he finally manages to speak, all that falls from his mouth is an awed, "Hi". 

Rey lets out a breathless little laugh and he cherishes the way her body trembles against his. One of his hands comes to rest at the small of her back, his fingers brushing against her spine as if to map her out. She hums appreciatively at the contact, as if she couldn't get enough of him.

It's _heady_.

"Hi," she replies, leaning in to press a chaste kiss to his lips. Then, she grins against his mouth and the confusion must be easy to read in the back of his eyes, because she laughs and adds, "Happy birthday". 

He can't help the chuckle that escapes his lips, and he presses his forehead against hers, happy just to bask in this moment, for how long it will last. It feels so _intimate_ – even more than everything that's happened tonight, as if being utterly defenseless and vulnerable like this had changed everything. He doesn't feel the urge to hide beneath harsh words and hard glares or using sarcasm and self-loathing as defense mechanisms, not anymore – he feels quiet and content in her embrace, as if being finally _seen_ didn't scare him anymore. 

That's why he speaks, probably. 

"I know it's probably not the right moment," he starts, hesitantly. His fingers start running up and down her spine and the way Rey just melts into him makes him _believe_ – makes him think that, despite how absurd it is, she feels the same. "And– I still don't understand it and maybe it's way too soon and you're going to think I'm crazy, but–"

"I love you," she interrupts him, her lips curving into a smile that's both soft and radiant, the kind of smile that makes his heart twist in his chest and erases every other thought from his mind. "I've loved you for ages, Ben. And– look, I still can't believe it myself and most of the times I just wish you'd _shut up_ , but– I love you". 

The grin that breaks out on his face is crooked and terrible and he probably looks awful, teary-eyed and smiling madly, but he doesn't care – she _loves_ him. Rey loves him. 

It's the weirdest thing ever – being loved. And yet, it feels weirdly right, as she looks at him like that, her eyes soft and tender and so _bright_ , happiness so easy to read on the lines of her face. 

He's spent the last few months thinking it was impossible for her to love him back, but now that he's here, into her arms, it feels oddly normal and obvious and he can't doubt it anymore, not when Rey smiles like that. He has to finally admit to himself that yes, this is real after all, and she does love him, surprising as it is.

"I love you, too," he tells her, and she _lights up,_ as if she'd been terrified of the possibility of him not feeling the same. As if he ever could.

He leans in, nuzzling his nose against hers, eliciting a silvery giggle from her. He knows she'll tease him about it later, when they'll stop being corny and sappy about this and they'll go back to torment each other back and forth, but for now, she seems happy to let him do it and he can't pass this opportunity up, so he presses a kiss to the tip of her nose, making her laugh.

Then, his lips curve into a smirk. "At least you know how to shut me up now". 

She chuckles, her fingers playing with the hair at the base of his neck and tracing small patterns against his skin. 

"You're the worst," she murmurs, rolling her eyes, before leaning in to kiss him. 

It's slow and gentle and loving and it feels like warmth pooling in his chest, like the soft light of the morning shining down on him, like a fire pleasantly crackling in the fireplace. He's never felt so blissfully _happy,_ in a domestic way. 

When she breaks away from him, she comes to poke at his chest, her lips pressed in a smirk. 

"Come on, let's get cleaned up and put some clothes on," she tells him, which sounds like the worst idea ever right now, because he'd rather spend the rest of this evening (and of his life) in this bed with her wrapped all around him. "I was thinking we could order pizza and celebrate your birthday". 

The thought makes his chest tight, because oh, she cares about his birthday. It's so _weird_ – he doesn't remember a time in which someone actually did. His parents probably cared at first, before work got in the way, but he can't remember it and he's gone through life without sparing another thought for the day he was born. And yet, Rey cares.

What a strange, wonderful world he lives in.

He pretends to think about it. "Does this–" he gestures between the two of them, their naked bodies still pressed together. He knows they need to go get cleaned up but he can't find it in himself to let go of her, not yet. "–mean that I can tease you about you putting pineapple on your pizza?" 

She flashes him one of the annoyed looks he's so used to and pokes again at his chest. "Don't you dare". 

"I think I will". 

It feels like dancing – like threading on familiar ground, holding her hand this time. Rey sighs and rolls her eyes and looks at him as if she wanted to kill him with her bare hands and he suddenly feels at _home_ , as if everything in his life had conspired to bring him here, in a quiet apartment in Coruscant on a Thursday night, Rey wrapped all over him and a quiet sense of happiness in his chest. 

It feels _right_ , as nothing has ever felt in his life. 

"You're impossible," she tells him, but there's a fondness in the back of her eyes that he can clearly recognize now. 

It feels easy to bring both of his hands to her hips and lean in, his lips a breath away from hers. "But you love me". 

"Yeah." She gently tugs at his hair, bringing him even closer. He could count all the freckles on her face like this and he's surprised to realize that he actually can, now. "Yeah, I do. But you're still the most insufferable idiot on this planet". 

" _Your_ idiot," he corrects her, with a smug grin.

Rey does what she does best – she surprises him, ripping the ground beneath his feet the moment he begins to feel steady on it, and so she shuts him up, kissing him, deeply and sweetly and _perfectly_. 

He doesn't think he'll ever complain. He can't wait for Rey to shut him up like this for the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as usual, i am also on [twitter](https://twitter.com/akosmia) and [tumblr](http://kylorensx.tumblr.com) if you want to say hi! also you'll probably see me on ao3 pretty soon because i have decided (pretty late, i know, but still) that my only purpose during this lockdown will be to write the fluffiest fluff you'll ever read so *fingerguns* see you all soon ♥

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me also on [twitter](https://twitter.com/akosmia) where i spend most of my time and i rant about exams and life and i cry over reylo and [tumblr](http://kylorensx.tumblr.com/) where i spend most of my time and i cry over reylo, again. what can i say, this is the life i have chosen for myself *shrug emoji*
> 
> see you next week and i hope you'll like this silly little story ♥


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